Enter Sandman
by Sionna Dehr
Summary: She was hiding in the city of Dallas to stay away from the realm of the supernatural. Unfortunately, when she meets a man she'd been dreaming about for six months, Brianna Davis knew, she just knew, that her attempt at hiding died a miserable death. Fate's a bitch, literally. Sam/OC friendship and Dean/OC friendship.
1. Chapter 1

Supernatural Visions

Chapter 1

The Reluctant Huntress

**Author's Note: Well, after pulling my hair out because my hard drive died in my last computer and forced me to lose everything I previously worked on in this Supernatural-verse, I finally managed to finish the first chapter of this story. Chapters two and three are already started and I plan on writing the beginnings of chapters four, five, six, and seven. This will be the first in an eight story series and I'm really excited about this.**

**WARNING: This is very AU! I merged my own canon from my original fiction with Supernatural, so various things have been changed. Not so much in this story, but the further I go, the more I change. I plan on following the series up to the middle of season six. After that, I might keep a few key points, but will mostly go off of my imagination. This is what I imagine would happen if I introduced an Original Character (Brianna really isn't a fan character) into the series. So, read at your own risk. **

**No romance per say, this is mostly a friendship fic between Sam, Dean and my OC. **

* * *

Sleep is the most important thing for anyone who wanted to stay in their right mind. It didn't matter if someone had, let's say, three hours of sleep a night because it was all they needed that time of rest was vitally important.

Me? I only _need _maybe three hours of sleep every two or three days, but I manage to squeeze in six hours a night. Strange to hear, no? Someone who could easily be considered an insomniac can, actually, fall asleep in a humanly normal, consistent schedule. I had about five years of practice now. Five blissfully normal years, well, as normal as someone like myself can ever get.

Now, you're probably wondering at my choice of the word _humanly_ to describe my routine sleep cycle, right? Well, I'm not human... At all. There was never a time in my life where I once was human then turned into something else (usually something dark), I was never experimented on as a child, and I've never made shady deals with demon (lying bastards that they are). No, I'm one of the good guys (not one of the rogue Fae claiming to be a god or goddess). I'm an elf. Yes, you heard that right, elf. As in the Tolkien elves (sort of) who are supposed to be tall, thin, and beautiful beyond the lot if mortals. I have certain super human strengths and weaknesses that are unique to my race. I have elemental powers and can control all five of them (there's a reason for that I'm not too thrilled with). I can see in the dark. I have excellent hearing. I... I can conceal myself from mortal eyes and walk among them appearing human.

Part of that desperate grasp for humanity was my need to keep a normal sleep schedule. Which was interrupted again for the third time that month and the only time it would happen that week.

Something opened my window. It wanted my attention, you see.

Bleary from my rest where I had been enjoying a dreamless night of sleep, I pulled back the green covers of my bed spread, each layer a different shade, and padded across the hardwood floor to my opened window. I can't describe it as a mysterious occurrence. I knew how the widow opened.

I looked out into the night, the sounds of Dallas, twelve AM traffic reaching my ears. My eyes, a strange color of teal and the only thing about my elvish heritage that bled through the disguise, searched the silver illuminated ground below me. I lived on the third floor of a five-story apartment complex off University. There was no conceivable way for anything to force my window open, well, anything that was evil or human at least.

These guys were impossible. There wasn't some sort of runic protection against them. They were just wolves; intelligent wolves peering at me from the moonlit landscape with their imploring golden eyes. Most wolves had yellow eyes. These guys were apparently too cool for creepy yellow and went for the gold.

I grabbed the top of my window, about to slam it shut again. This had to stop. They had been getting persistent lately.

"Go away!" I hissed from my room, "I don't do that stuff anymore!"

I tugged, hard, and my window descended to the ledge with an audible bang. I winced at the loud sound. I hadn't meant to be loud.

They still watched me when I glanced outside again. I sighed, shook my head, and closed the curtains (I didn't like blinds).

With a weariness that could only come from being subjected to visits from unwanted nocturnal animals, I trudged back to the comfort of my bed and heaved myself back underneath the covers. Another thing tended to come after the wolves' visits and I had long resigned myself to the strange occurrence ever since it began.

I closed my eyes and went through my mental exorcizes that lulled my brain back to the wondrous world that was sleep. This time, though, I didn't have a dream. I had a vision. Or, something strange that I could barely wrap my brain around.

I felt like I had woken up as I sat up in the usual room I appeared in after the wolf event. It was almost like some weird ritual I didn't understand.

My human guise was gone, it always was in the dream, and revealed my pointed ears, "exotic" beauty and glowing skin and hair. Against the white walls, white furniture, and white atmosphere of the room, my pale skin washed out more than it would in a normal, every day, room. Thankfully my hair was dark enough to help me stand out and my eyes were another thing that didn't blend in. I took that as a good thing.

I looked down and frowned. White dress too. Always white and I never understood why. Was this dream taking place in my mind? I pondered that thought at the start of every encounter.

"You're here," came the deep bass sound of a male voice on the other side of the small white room.

I figured the room was a sort if parlor, but I wasn't quite sure. Maybe it was a reflection of a memory I had as a kid? Who knew?

In front of me though, was a seemingly human man. I say seemingly human, because as far as I know, he seemed to be able to enter my mind from a great distance. I had long ago come to the conclusion that he was, probably, a wizard. Wizards and witches were a sub-race of beings that stemmed from human and elven cross breeding. It was impossible for him to be anything else. Evil forces couldn't enter my mind, not easily. I'd made sure of that long ago.

He was dressed in a white flannel shirt that buttoned up the middle (of course) and a pair of white jeans. The jeans had floored me the first time i had met him. All my life and I had never really seen white jeans. Well, I hadn't noticed them, at least.

I smiled at him and met his sapphire blue eyes while attempting to center myself. It was a normal reaction I had to him. There aren't many humans I would ever admit to myself as breathtakingly handsome.

He returned my expression, though his half-hearted grin didn't meet my eyes, and I cocked my head to the side in confusion.

"I've been trying to see if I could contact you on my own, but I can't seem to control it," he said.

I frowned. I knew that rhetoric. It normally preluded a spot of me, Brianna, playing therapist. Granted, he'd heard my share of complaints, so I couldn't really say anything.

"I found someone like me. Demon killed his mom in a fire and everything. He was young, though, still in high school. He killed his father and uncle then attempted to kill his step mother," my unnamed companion informed me.

No, I didn't know his name, though I knew that I could find him in real life if I wanted to. I didn't, though because I refused to step back into that sort of life again. I'd been free for five years and I wasn't going to ruin my life because I had some connection with a ridiculously handsome human I met in a dream. Oye!

"Why? What was the motive?" I asked because it was an important question.

"Abusive father and uncle with an apathetic step mother carrying a guilty conscious," he replied.

I whistled and moved to sit down on the stark white couch which was surprisingly cushiony despite the fact that it kind of resembled the consistency of a pearl.

"Poor kid, what happened?" I asked.

He followed me looking absolutely devastated. Judging from that look I had a sneaking suspicion that he had grown very close to this kid and the case and that it affected him more than he probably wanted it to.

"He killed himself," he said.

I placed my left hand on his shoulder that faced me.

"Must be hard, feeling like you failed him," I said while getting straight to the point.

It didn't take a genius to figure out how he was feeling.

"Well, I did," he said dejectedly.

"The problem with life," I began while my body leaned back against the rise of the couch, "is that it's filled with people we can't help or can help. This boy was probably seven seconds away from killing himself the entire time and the smallest trigger could set him off. Personally, I would have let him have his revenge. It sounded justified to me, no matter how wrong murder is."

"In cold blood?" He asked shocked.

I shrugged, "He wouldn't be the first. I work with law enforcement sometimes. This scenario is something I've personally seen and, well, the officers go through the same thing you do. I've distanced myself from it by now... Been doing it for too long."

He looked like he was contemplating something so I watched him, watched the slight downward curve of his lips and the small arch to his brow. His eyes seemed to stare at nothing, so I had a feeling that he was reliving some sort of memory. To us, it was a few minutes before he spoke again.

"My brother always says that we shouldn't get attached to people because of what we do, but... I can't help it. I like people, always have, and when I found out that there could be others like me, well, I was happy. But now I don't know if I'll go crazy or not," he said.

I laughed, "Firstly, crazy can be fun, especially if you own it. Secondly, I doubt your powers are going to turn you evil. That's not how innate magic works no matter how you swing it. You don't have demon magic, well, not enough to over power my defenses."

"You still think I'm a wizard, or something don't you?" He asked.

"The signs are there," I insisted.

The room flickered as did his form and we shared a sad smile. I'll be the first to admit that I've grown fond of my mortal dream partner.

"Have a good day," he said.

"You too," I replied.

With that the dream ended and everything went dark. Awake, I opened my eyes and let out a wide yawn. Well, these dreams were never bad, at least. I didn't normally have bad dreams, not any more, but that didn't mean I never have them every once in a while. As odd as these dreams with this mystery man who told me so much about himself, I enjoyed having someone to talk to just to talk. Granted, the preceding parade of reminders of my former life were something I could do without.

I twisted in my bed thinking about falling back to sleep when my phone vibrated on the side table next to my side of the bed. I groaned, already guessing who it was, and picked the thing up it glance at the text.

**"New case Davis. It's an odd one for ya. You should like it." - Gibbs-**

I let out an annoyed breath. A consultants' job was never done. Not in the big city of Dallas, Texas. My eyes rested on the time. Six-thirty. With a shrug, I moved my covers and slid out of bed with a finality in my movements that said I wasn't coming back for the rest of the day.

* * *

When it came to clothes I had three different places where I put three different clothes types for all occasion plus a fourth area where I hid nice pretty dresses for formal events be they work related or not. I know the system sounds neat and organized, I can assure you that it is for me, but most people would call my closet an organized mess. Needless to say that I did not do natural clean very well.

Anyway, I tended to wear a pair of nice jeans and a plaid shirt. I also tended towards sneakers for footwear. I've had to run after (or from) perps before and sneakers were the best sort of footwear to run in. By six-forty-five I was rushing into my car with the text Gibbs sent me that told me wear the address was. I logged it into my GPS system and then took off into the waxing dawn.

Dallas traffic was interesting, but having lived in other areas of the world where traffic laws were virtually non-existent, I preferred the complex road system and the slow driving to dealing with several hundred obviously drugged individuals probably suffering from some sort of hangover or withdrawal. At least the roads were labeled.

I arrived at the scene of the crime with a frown on my face. Nice neighborhood. Like really nice. Like the kind I technically could afford, but didn't dare dip into those funds to retrieve the money.

The house I was staring at was the generic large house that looked like it had a big first and second story plus a walk in attic. It was a nice house, just not a very interesting one.

Detective Vincenzo was in his element torturing the newbie Detective Lazaro. They were taking pictures of the door that seemed to have been broken from the inside out. My eyes narrowed in on that bit. Strange. Why would a door break out instead of in?

I got out of my car and was about to approach my teammates when two men sidled passed me dressed in sharp looking suits. I blinked and then wanted to stab something. The bloody Feds! What the hell were they doing here?

I silently followed them as they approached Vincenzo and Lazaro. Both detectives looked up, saw the Feds and caught my eye. I shook my head. Let them pretend I wasn't there for a moment.

"Hello, we're agents Shield and Darnell," began the short one as they flashed IDs but I noticed that they didn't show any badges.

"We're here to investigate the Laten murder," the short one with the blond hair continued.

"Uh, why?" Vincenzo asked impertinently.

I smiled and winked at him. Giving the Feds hell was always a lot of fun, especially if they weren't Feds.

"Because there were five other murders in the exact same style here in the neighborhood in the past week. We're making sure that there's nothing out of the ordinary going on," I think the short one was named Agent Shield?

"It's a precautionary measure, you understand. Practically routine. You won't even notice us," said the tall one.

I blinked. Why did his voice sound familiar?

"You lot said that last time and we still noticed you," I piped in dryly.

The sight of two grown not-so Federal Agents jumping a foot into the air was probably the satisfying high light of my day. They were not as ninja-like as they liked to think they were. Both men whirled around to face me and the smirk I was about to plaster onto my face froze. Because, here's the thing about dream boys, they're only supposed to stay dreams whether they were real or not. The tall agent with shaggy brown hair was the man who visited my dreams (and yes I know that sounds as cheesy as hell) and, frankly, that scared the shit out of me.

I mentally forced myself to recover from the shock of seeing him and plastered the smirk on my face anyway. I crossed my arms.

"No, really, you Feds are so covert that you're overt. It's actually painful to watch," I said.

The tall one was staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face. I knew that look. He probably noticed the similarities between myself and my elven appearance and was trying to figure out if I was the same person or not.

Well, I was not going to do this now, if ever. I didn't do this elf style stuff anymore. I prefer the mundane life of mortals, thanks. Less stressful.

"You know, most Feds show their badges and not their picture IDs," I pointed out.

The shorter one rolled his eyes, totally unprofessional, and lifted up his jacket. The tall one followed suit. Oh. Well. They did have badges.

I also was still quite certain that they weren't Federal Agents.

"Well," Vincenzo started, "I'll go let Gibbs know you're here. Bri, come on back if you want."

The shorter one held up his hand when I started to walk around him. I gave him one of my faux sweet smiles.

"Why is a civilian entering a dangerous crime scene?" Blond boy asked.

"Because this civilian is a) our primary consultant for odd cases, and b) because she's a tiny spitfire that has been known to break bones and rupture vital organs," Vincenzo replied pointedly.

I smirked, "That was code for move it or lose it."

Agent Blondie's bottom lip pushed out and up into a small frown while he bobbed his head in a nod, telling all of us that he believed us. He lowered his arm and stepped away from me, holding up both hands in defeat.

I walked passed him and into the building while Gibbs moved for the door. I smiled at her.

Detective Rachel Gibbs had worked homicide for two decades. Her persona was as tall as she was, making her seem like she was larger than life. She had brown speckled gray hair and honey tanned skin (natural). Her eyes were green and excelled at making people feel uncomfortable. I almost burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter at the thought of watching her make two Federal Agents nervous, but I bit back the urge. I had a crime scene to observe.

I walked down the hall to the back of the house where the second den was (yes there were two living rooms inside that house) passing the familiar faces of the other officers along the way. I nodded and smiled a greeting while letting a few of them know that the Feds were here. I was met with a barrage of groans, eye rolls, and amused glances. All of them remembered what happened the last time the precinct had to work with the Feds.

It wasn't until I had made it to the crime scene that my good mood plummeted. There was the dead man on the floor surrounded by a puddle of blood and pink goo still leaking out of his ears. His eyes were also gouged out and the empty sockets stared straight into the ceiling fan where the lightbulb had shattered. I stepped over a few glass shards so as to not damage potential evidence.

My mouth fell and a burst of anger welled inside my stomach. I DID not do this stuff anymore!

Deciding to at least take a look at the body, but not believing there was any hope for me at this point, I knelt down beside the medical examiner.

"So, what do you see right now?" I asked.

"Cause of death is unclear, but I don't think it was the eyes. There's a strange substance leaking out of his ears, but I haven't idem tied it yet. The only other thing I can say about him is the weird twisted smile he's got, but I doubt that means anything," Doctor Alynn McCreenie told me.

I frowned, "No, believe me, I think I already know what happened and I need to talk to Gibbs."

Before she could ask me why, the Feds walked into the room followed by Detective Gibbs. I took out my phone, opened the texting app and started typing. A moment later, after I hit send, Gibbs' phone buzzed.

I had written one word, **Goblin**.

Her lips pursed and she glanced at the Feds then back at me. I shrugged letting her know that I would deal with them later.

"What the hell is that pink fluid stuff?" Blondie asked.

Brains, I though but neglected to speak up and tell them.

Dream man knelt down and took out a small vial with a Q-tip attached to the lid and scooped up a sample. Thankfully I didn't need to do that. I'd seen this scenario before. The wonders of being an ex-OLIMPUS hunter.

"Well," began Dream Man, "We'll find out once we get this back to the lab."

I remembered when I first encountered a situation like this. I had been stationed in Cardiff, Wales following up on a string of odd murder victims. The murder victims, you see, had been committing random pranks that ranged from harmlessly entertaining to down right dangerously alarming. I hadn't even realized what the problem was until I ran the tests on the liquefied brains. That was a bit of forensics I never wanted to do again.

"Lab? Yeah, right! Lab," Blondie said momentarily stepping out of character.

I exchanged a glance with Detective Gibbs and Dr. McCreenie. I wasn't sure about our coroner, but Gibbs and I were definitely on the same page where these two were concerned. They definitely weren't Feds. Feds would never actually act like they were incompetent, not like these guys.

I watched as Gibbs lifted up her hand that held her phone and proceeded to tap a little harder than was necessary on the keys. My phone buzzed a moment later.

**Impersonating Federal Agents? **She asked.

I replied, **Probably. I'll handle them. I think I know what they're up to.**

**You better. **

With that we watched as they stepped back and nodded in Doctor McCreenie's direction with Blondie feeling the need to add a cocky smile. I rolled my eyes then caught the gaze of Dream Man. His blue orbs shined in a mix of aggravation and bemusement. Apparently, he dealt with this type of behavior frequently and had finally decided to just sit back and roll with it. I couldn't help it. I grinned then sent a wink in his direction. I'd done that several times in our dreams, not that he'd actually know. I looked different, after all.

Just as I expected he would, Dream Man ducked his head to one side, left I think, and turned an endearing shade of red. I bit my bottom lip in an attempt to hold back the laugh that welled up from my vocal chords and settled for an undignified snort. If he hadn't recognized me in my human guise I definitely knew that he would recognize my laugh. Best not the get into that subject just yet, I figured.

"We'll be going now," Dream Man said, "Thank you for your time. Come on, Agent Shield."

And he grabbed Blondie's arm and pulled him out of the crime scene. When we were sure they'd gone Gibbs, McCreenie and I shook our heads and proceeded to take care of the body and the rest of the crime scene. I didn't need to do a complete thorough search like the others. I'd already known what to look for.

"Davis am I gonna have to worry about them boys?" Detective Gibbs asked after talked to Dr. McCreenie about the time of death and the probable cause.

I laughed, "I think I know why they're here. I'll deal with them, promise."

After all, there were only two branches of hunters in the world and only one didn't have an official organization.

"And this case is your sort of case, right?" she asked.

I nodded and a frown replaced my humor-driven smile. Yes, this was my sort of case, no matter how much I didn't like it. But this was business as usual, of course. My price for remaining off the grid (because I had no doubt that my aunt knew exactly where I was) was to take care of the localized supernatural occurrences and to keep the humans as far away from the issue as possible. Kind of hard to do when one runs in to the human hunters, though.

With a sigh I turned to Gibbs and shrugged, "Unfortunately. I'll deal with this, you guys focus on trying to find a good cover for this one."

The precinct knew about the supernatural by now. They had to since I was there.

With that I took my leave and headed back to my apartment fully intending to conduct research on these human hunters. Unfortunately, this meant that I'd have to log in to OLIMPUS's database, but I needed to find this bit out. It was better to know the names of the people I was about to bar from this investigation, after all.

* * *

I decided that the first thing I needed to do was run a search through OLIMPUS's records of human hunters. There were a lot of records about the hunter families in the human world. It always ended up turning into a family business for them and they had their own distinct networks to deal with. I sifted through the individual hunter files first but didn't expect to find anything. It was when I made it most of the way through the Hunter Family files that I actually found something.

Winchester.

"Damn," I cursed.

I knew about the Winchesters. I had worked with John Winchester about seven years ago, shortly before I left OLIMPUS. He was, admittedly, good at hunting, but he wasn't good enough to where I was actually comfortable with him pursuing the supernatural dark creature (actually, I think it was a darkling we were chasing). He partially proved me right. At least he was resourceful.

It looked like I was going to be dealing with his two sons, one of whom had a glaring Fed record for murder. I frowned at that then clicked on the police report.

I sighed. Okay, so, string of serial murders seemingly committed by different people, but the Feds ended up pinning it on Dean Winchester. Since the older Winchester was actually there I suspected that there was a supernatural job involved.

Hmm, maybe I could use this to get the brothers out of my hair with this Goblin? It was worth a shot.

With my mind made up, I closed the lid to my laptop and went to go look for the Winchester brothers. I pointedly ignored the little voice in my head telling me that I finally knew the name of the man who visited me in my dreams once a week. That was a place I most definitely not willing to go.

After some deliberation, I decided to find them in the place where I had no doubt they'd be; at the crime scene, at night, looking for supernatural signs. Elves never needed to use half the equipment they did. For one, we had a special connection to the world of the supernatural that humans didn't, so we were able to sense things better than most. Another reason involved the fact that elves used technology that was far beyond what mortals could come up with. Elves who decided to go into the hunter business also went through rigorous hours of indoor study learning the signs and histories of the creatures we hunted. It was a lot of work, but still important, and sometimes I missed actually going through the system.

But that was the deal I had struck with my aunt when I told her I was going to completely shut myself out of the elven community and live with Professor Moruni as her student in archeology. I had to keep up with the few supernatural incidences in Dallas and keep the police department from getting caught up in that sort of shitstorm. If I did that, she would keep me out of the eye of the elven courts.

It was part of the reason why I did so much consultant work, but it hadn't taken Detective Gibbs very long to notice that I actually liked doing what I did. So, she had taken to tricking me into the mundane cases (at the beginning) and slowly managed to weave my life into her team's.

The house, as I approached it, looked incredibly foreboding in the dark. All of the houses on this street did. It was the way they were modeled, I decided, that gave their appearances a sinister edge to the way the half-moon shined down onto the looming buildings. I slipped up to the house I knew the Winchester brothers would be in and tried the doorknob. Unlocked.

Slowly, so as to not attract too much attention, I reached onto my purse and took out a permanent black marker. Mentally sifting through the different rhunes I had cataloged in my mind I finally came up with the one to keep the door and myself from making loud, sudden, noises. Carefully, I drew on the wood of the door and my skin- right above the doorknob and right above the fading rhune that kept me looking human.

Satisfied with my work, I opened the front door and walked right in.

The thudding of footfalls and bickering voices reached my ears and I willed myself to not roll my eyes. Really, these guys were too obvious to be Feds and it probably was a good thing I knew what they actually did. How they managed to not get caught this long was (and always will be) beyond me.

A bright yellow glow from the partially ajar backroom told me that one of them had turned a lamp on. It was another amateur move on their part, though I couldn't blame them for it. Humans weren't elves. They couldn't see in the dark like we could.

I peered through the crack and listened to them talk.

"So, you sure this stuff is… human… er… brain?" asked the voice of the brother I had deemed 'blondie' earlier that day but who was really called Dean.

I bit my tongue to keep myself from laughing. That was pretty much what I had said when I had a forensic scientist I knew test this stuff the first time I had ever come across a goblin.

"That's what the lab tests said and I had the tech rerun it just to make sure," said my Dream Man, Sam.

"Ugh! And here I thought we'd seen everything!" came the elder's sarcastic reply.

I breathed back a snort.

"What do you think this thing is? I've never heard of a demon or a ghost doing this and there's no EMF or anything like it," remarked the younger one.

"I've never seen it before. Think your dream girl might have an idea?" the older one asked.

I blinked. I hadn't expected to be brought up in the conversation. It made sense for Sam to talk about me to Dean, though. Neither of us had actually given our names to each other in our dream meetings and the only reason why I had gone looking for it now was because he decided to stick his nose in my case. I winced at that thought. The homicide detectives were beginning to rub off on me.

"Dean, you know I can't actually contact her at will, don't you?" the younger asked.

Thud! I winced at the sound. They were moving things around and ruining the crime scene! Not that it made much of a difference. Gibbs was already working with my aunt to get this covered up and make up a murderer, but still! There were a few things that should never happen in the history of law and tampering with potential evidence was one of them!

"Yeah I know, but she's this elf-thing, right? You'd think she'd know something about these guys!" Dean Winchester insisted.

"She might, and she's a female elf, looks humanoid and everything. Personally, I think you'd like her," Sam Winchester muttered that last bit.

"What was that?"

"You heard me!"

"Bitch!"

"Jerk!"

"Real mature Sammy!"

"Huh, you'd know, wouldn't you?" came Sam Winchester's retort.

I pulled a face. They were worse than Vincenzo and Lazaro on a good day!

A smirk spread its way across my face. There was one way to shut them up and I'd have a lot of fun doing it, too. I knocked on the partially open door.

Silence.

"Dude, you sure you didn't pick up any readings?" Sam Winchester asked.

"Positive," replied a confused and wary Dean.

"Then what the hell was that?"

"Damned if I know!"

This time I really did roll my eyes. They needed to host a talk show. Or write parody fiction. Either one would make them millions.

"Dean and Sam Winchester, open the door! I know you're in there!" I called.

Silence again. I was trying not to burst out laughing.

Finally, it was Sam who apparently had the courage to open the door and meet my gaze. I didn't know if he could see my eyes very well, but I could see his and they were as breathtaking as they were this morning. It was weird, seeing him outside of my head dressed in normal clothes.

He blinked, "You're that consultant from earlier."

I smiled.

"Wait, you mean that chick one of the detectives was bragging about?" Dean Winchester asked from behind his brother.

"Yeah and I managed to sneak up on you two twice. I'd suggest working on your stealth skills if you actually want to continue your little hunting career," I said.

I couldn't see Dean's face, but Sam was openly gaping at me. I didn't blame him. Not everyone knew that the supernatural existed let alone human hunters. To think that even human hunters didn't know elves existed. Should be interesting.

"You know," Sam finally said in a breathy tone that told me he had been holding his breath without even realizing it.

I nodded, "I know a lot more than you boys ever will. Including things concerning this case. Gibbs is having me take care of it, so I suggest you two leave and hunt a good ghost, or something that won't liquefy your brains if it manages to possess you."

Dean, surprisingly, managed to find his voice first.

"Hold on, you expect us to let you handle this on your own?" he asked.

I gave the appearance of thinking a moment before replying, "Yeah, pretty much."

"But we don't know what this thing is," Sam pointed out.

"I actually do know what it is," I said pointedly, "and I happen to be a professional where hunting dangerous creatures are concerned. You guys grasp at straws half the time, then proceed to bumble on crime scenes and disturbing them. This is something beyond you, trust me, and it'll take special measures to fix."

Sam looked offended. It was actually kind of cute. Well, it was absolutely adorable, as much as I hated to admit it.

"Yeah isn't that the point of us?" Dean asked me.

I shrugged, "Not in this circumstance. Trust me, you guys are in danger around this thing. Better to let me handle it."

"And why would we do that?" Dean Winchester asked in an extremely condescending tone.

I didn't blame them for asking. They didn't know what I was and they didn't know what I could do. For all they knew, I was a hunter that worked with the police and had access to things that they didn't. My status amongst the law enforcement wouldn't make me any more qualified to take this thing out than they were.

"I have special powers and abilities that you two lack," I replied after a moment's hesitation.

Telling them I wasn't human probably wouldn't go over very well no matter how well acquainted Sam Winchester was with my actual elven appearance. It was better to just make them believe that this was something only I could do based on a special innate power I was born with.

Come to think of it, Sam, at least, could probably access that same power. After all, he wouldn't be able to access my dreams if he didn't have any elven blood in his lineage. Which probably meant that Dean Winchester was likely to be a wizard as well.

Had I still been a huntress, I would have pursued this thesis. Since I wasn't, I refrained from getting too involved. It was part of the reason why I wanted them out of my hair so badly.

"That's bullshit," Dean deadpanned.

I smiled, "I can also get the Feds to drop your murder charges and have your files classified."

My aunt normally did this for most human hunters without inducting them into the system. Sometimes she did this without them even knowing the moment she got wind of it. Dean's Federal record was fairly new and, while I knew she probably already knew about his record, she probably hadn't the time to deal with it. There were other things that I knew she was worried about like keeping the elven Council of Nobles off my and other members of my family's backs. Sad, isn't it?

Anyway, with me being an ex OLIMPUS hunter I had authority to order the Feds to drop the price on Dean's head. All that would take was a call to the Secretary of Defense.

I could see the hopeful look in Sam's eyes and knew he was about to ask if it was actually possible when Dean voiced his opinion.

"I don't believe you. The government doesn't know a thing about us or what we do," he said.

I smirked, "You'd be surprised. Trust me, it's better that I don't let you two get involved. Now shoo! Or I'll make you."

Sam was staring at me again. His expression was unreadable, but I knew he was still trying to figure out where he had seen me before. I hadn't changed too much of my elven appearance and knew that I looked familiar to him.

Kind of sad that, even then, I could read him easily.

I wasn't sure if he reached a decision or not, but Sam Winchester suddenly grabbed his brother's arm. Dean looked over at him about to say something, but caught the expression that I hadn't seen before. My eyes narrowed. I might not have known the expression, but it was obvious that something was up.

"If it makes you happy," Sam said, "we'll go."

"Right," Dean added, "Yeah, okay, just get my record clean and we'll be fine."

Sam stepped past me first, being the closest brother near the door. Our eyes met one last time before he dragged Dean out and something seemed to flicker in those green depths. Before I could properly gauge, he looked away from me and the two left the room. I waited silently while listening to their loud footsteps treading down the hall and to the front door. When the door slammed shut I sagged against the doorframe of the room and let out a relieved breath. Thank the Lord that hadn't escalated to what I hoped it wouldn't!

I was about to turn to leaven when my eyes caught the gleaming golden orbs of two white wolves hovering in the distance. My teeth grazed my bottom lip and my entire body froze, like it didn't quite know what to do with itself.

My eyes blinked several times, hoping that the wolves would leave me alone, but it was for naught. They remained to silently watch me in an almost mocking fashion. The moon shown on their gleaming coats, making them appear ethereal and otherworldly. Just like their mistress; just like me.

Angry, tired, and wanting to run as far away as a possibly could, I whirled around on my heels and stomped out of the house.

Sam and Dean were already gone by the time I left.

* * *

The next day I was caught up in the case, trying to figure out where the Goblin was hiding next. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it already had its next victim. All that I had to do was search out a potential troublemaker and fry the thing inside its host. By this point in time, the host body would be dead, I knew that much, just to make way for the being of the Goblin. It was a horrible way to die, but it happened because Goblins weren't a ghost or a demon, they had bodies and those bodies liked to inhabit other bodies; like a parasite.

This, of course, made them one thousand times harder to kill.

It took looking into the house's security footage and realizing that the Goblin most likely possessed a friend confronting the person the Goblin took over when the body began to show signs of decay. I finally found out who the next host was after hours upon hours of watching boring house footage and then set out to plan the perfect way to kill it. I couldn't kill the Goblin in the host. While the host might already have been dead the Goblin would just vacate the body the moment I stabbed it. No, I was going to need something else, a way to trap it and dispose of it without too much hassle.

My apartment was the next destination. I had acquired many different materials and books over my century long existence (yes you read that right) and I made certain that the general content of each book was memorized. That way I could remember where something was when I needed to look something up. Elves had bored days too, sometimes bored months. It was amazing how much one could get done when they had absolutely nothing to do.

I took down a book titled _The Encyclopedia of Grade B Demons, Creatures, and Monsters _by Professor Laurel Moruni, my mentor. I checked the last date the book updated itself and nodded. Good, it was the latest it could possibly be!

You might be wondering about the book updating itself. Well, elves tend to mix magic and technology for things ranging from mundane appliances to important things like information books and weapons. The books, once added to by the original author, updated themselves to include the latest bit of information. This happens as often as the author makes the update. Sometimes, if there are several authors, there are several updates a year. Professor Moruni updates her books once a year on December 20th and leaves the rest of the world with the most thoroughly researched bit of current information that we could possibly get our hands on. In recent years, the elder elf (oh yeah, she's old… older than dirt… literally) had a lot of time on her hands for research and made the most of it by focusing on at least fifty research topics a month.

I wasn't kidding when I said elves didn't need that many hours of sleep. She, not being like me, only slept three hours every other day.

And I, along with others like me, were able to benefit from her knowledge.

There was a huge section about Goblins in the middle of the book. I read through it and ticking off the bits and pieces of information I already knew and compared it to some of the new entrees. Goblins were a migratory race. They were also a bit partial to people with pale skin. I'm not talking about people who are Caucasian, I actually mean people who are abnormally pale no matter their ethnic background. From what I read of the similar case files that were related to the one I was working, the last few victims ranged from Asian to albino African American.

The best way to kill a Goblin was to throw vinegar on it's original form. I thought back to all of the empty cans of pepper spray bottles I had in the back of my kitchen cabinets. They could work.

* * *

I was on fire that night, sneaking into the house the Goblin currently occupied with its new host. I didn't end up doing this sort of thing all the time, no matter how many supernatural attacks happened in Dallas (not as many as you'd think). The spray cans were hidden in my jacket and I carried three elven knives strapped to both of my arms and hip. I wore a jean jacket and, while it showcased the elven knife strapped to my right hip, it completely hid the two on my left and right arms. If I had still been a huntress, I wouldn't be wearing jeans, a tank top, and a jean jacket. No, I would have worn the uniform assigned to high-level hunters. Yeah, I was, still am, that good.

The two-bedroom cottage house was quiet and dark save for the glowing light in one of what I assumed to be a bedroom. I proceeded with caution round the side of the house to the back fence to open the gate latch. Immediately I was hit with the smell of decaying meat and days old blood and I held back a violent cough. One of the things I didn't like about being an elf was the sad fact that I could smell the rotting decay of flesh far easier than I really wanted to. I found the source of the smell a little ways into the backyard. A dog. Dead dog.

My chest constricted and I had to will myself to focus on the assignment at hand and not dwell on the fact that a dead Golden Retriever lay on the ground in a bloody, mangled, mess. I liked animals a lot, even if I ate them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Canine anything tended to be my favorite type and seeing a dead one at that moment was heart breaking for me.

However, this did fill me with righteous anger all directed towards my quarry. Kill innocent dogs? Son of a bitch was going down!

Thankfully I was met with French doors instead of sliding glass ones. It made breaking into them a lot easier and less noisy. I knelt down and placed my hand on the lock, getting the feel of the grooves and nitches that made up the inside of the keyhole. When that was done I placed my hand on the cement padio and concentrated. When I was done I had a makeshift key ready-made for me to unlock the door.

To my immense satisfaction, I was in.

I was short for an elf. My father was what my people categorized as an Eduna, or forest elf. My mother had been a Rhune, or light elf. The Eduna were shorter than most other elves, skin pale but not stark white, and tended to look more - how should I put this? – not like stick figures? That sounded right. Due to this, we tended to be lighter on our feet and better at stealth. I had the, I guess advantage would be the right word, of being part Rhune, so my body was annoyingly thin too. Even when I looked like an elf I always hated it. It made skulking on rooftops a challenge, but I could swim and run rather well. My cousin had always been jealous.

Being small and thin had its perks, though, especially when I was trying to remain inconspicuous. It made moving through a small, dark, house ten times easier.

Or so I thought at the time until I was hit on the back of the head from behind.

I face planted into the hallway, jarred for a moment and slightly breathless from the fall. A hand grabbed by braided hair and pulled me off the ground.

"I was wondering when they'd send one of you after me. Unfortunately for you, a witch can't do much against a Goblin," breathed a cracked voice obviously in the process of decaying.

I winced as the Goblin dragged me into a sitting position by my long braid. Well, guess the element of surprise was futile, but that didn't mean all was lost. I stared straight ahead and fought the impulse to turn around and look at it. Apparently the Goblin needed a new host and the thing thought I was mostly human. Hilarious, and it would work in my favor.

Then the front door flew open.

"Hey, douchebag!"

There was a gunshot and the thing let go of my hair while I was showered in… salt? Oh good grief salt didn't kill Goblins!

I turned around to face the door and saw the Winchester brothers enter the house, shotguns raised and pointed at the Goblin. It was one of those moments where I fervently wished that it wasn't illegal to murder someone. Morons!

"What the hell are you two doing here?" I asked angrily.

"Saving your ass apparently, the thing looked like it was about to stab you in the neck," Dean Winchester said.

Oh, well, I definitely hadn't known that.

The Goblin snarled and started towards the Winchester brothers. I took out the knife at my hip and stabbed the thing in the side. It screamed and backhanded me across my face. I was dazed, again, for a second, but I was aware enough to hear Sam get thrown across the room.

"Sam!" Dean yelled before the Goblin went after him.

I stood up, managed to get my bearings, and lunged for the Goblin punching Dean on the floor. The knife that was still in my hand was raised and I plunged the blade into the back of its head. The creature ripped itself out of the walking corpse and reshaped into a shriveled, demented, old man.

It turned to me with a snarl that morphed into absolute terror, but I didn't register the expression. All I knew was that something terrified it enough to distract it. I took out a spray can of vinegar I prepared earlier and unleashed the mix into the Goblin's face. It screamed, broke out into boils as the vinegar dribbled down its skin, and then exploded.

I grimaced while wiping some of the slime off my shirt. Just as disgusting as I remembered.

I glanced down at Dean and moved to help him up when he backed away from me and scooted against the wall.

"What the hell are you?" he asked, his voice shaky.

I looked down and frowned. My skin was glowing slightly. Well damn! Damn, damn, damn! I forgot to reapply the rhune that kept me looking human!

"Dean, its okay, I know her," Sam grunted from behind me.

Dean's alarmed blue eyes shifted from myself to his brother. I looked behind me and noticed Sam was struggling to get up and sported that kicked puppy look I knew him best for.

I closed my eyes. Apparently, no matter how much one tries to avoid something, if its supposed to happen, it will. Me and Sam meeting in our dreams once a week whether we wanted to or not? Gonna happen. Sam and I finally meeting face to face no matter how much I didn't want to? Fate's a bitch. Literally and figuratively.

My eyes opened again and met Dean's who now had his gun back in his hands and was pointing it at me. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes. I stared up the barrel at him, frowning.

"What do you want with my brother?" he more demanded than asked.

"Nothing, he's the one who gets into my head, not me," I informed him.

Dean glanced over me at Sam.

"It's true," Sam said.

He glanced back at me, "Why didn't you tell us who you were?"

I sent him a look, "Why do you think?"

"What are you?" he asked, clearly not perturbed by my irritation.

"I'm an elf," I said, "You know, Lord of the Rings, Tolkien? Those kinds, except I can actually use magic."

"Bullshit, elves don't exist," Dean said.

At least he had conviction.

"You're staring at one right now. Sam told you what I was, didn't he?" I asked.

Dean glanced back at Sam for a moment before returning his gaze to mine.

"Didn't believe it," he spat.

"Dean, put the gun down, she's not gonna hurt us. She hunts the same things we do," Sam reasoned.

"How do we know it's not a front, Sam? For all we know, she could be working with the same people dad's after!" Dean said.

"She's not, Dean, just put the gun down and let's talk about this."

Dean was on edge, body ridged to the point where he was practically shaking. I remained calm, took a deep breath, and decided to play the one card I knew would at least get his attention.

"I worked with your dad once. His name is John Winchester. It was six years ago, before I left OLIMPUS, that's the hunters organization my people, the elves, set up after World War II," I smirked here, "my aunt's the head and came up with the idea after attending the first Directors meeting in the US executive cabinet."

"You're not in our dad's journal," Dean pointed out.

"I told him not to write about me. OLIMPUS hunters like to remain a secret from humans, even you lot. We try to help you out as best we can, but right now they're stretched pretty thin. The world is our jurisdiction, you see," I said.

"And you're not part of them anymore?" Dean asked.

"Not formally, no."

He finally lowered his gun, but still didn't relax, "Six years ago… Sammy weren't we in Alaska six years ago? Anchorage?"

"Yeah," Sam said and I could hear the faint tremors of betrayal in his voice.

Dean began pacing the room and I moved to lean against the wall. That blow to the back of my head was starting to throb and I felt dizzy. I met Sam's gaze and abruptly looked away. No, he definitely wasn't happy with me.

Finally, the older Winchester seemed to come to some sort of conclusion when he came to a stop and let out a long, drawn out, sigh. With a shake of his head, he turned back to me.

"I take it that, since my dad hasn't killed you, he trusts you?"

I nodded, remaining silent. Dean sighed again and turned to his brother.

"We're taking her with us," he said.

I blinked, shocked and very much outraged, and Sam's expression mirrored my feelings.

"What?" he asked.

Dean crossed his arms, "You wanna find dad, Sam? She's it. If she is what she says she is and has an organization at her back, she might be able to find him and convince him to let us help. Besides, I don't trust her and I want to keep an eye on her. So she's coming with us, got it?"

I wanted to argue, I wanted to yell at them, I wanted to tell Sam to just leave Dallas and not involve me in something I obviously didn't want. But, I knew that one wrong word, one sign of hostility, would set them both off against me, so I remained silent.

Sam glanced at me and our eyes met again. His lips pursed. Well, he was definitely not happy with me, but I knew where his opinion would turn.

"Okay, I want to find dad, so… yeah. We'll take her," he said and I knew that wasn't the only reason why he wanted me along.

Sam Winchester had questions and he wanted answers. Taking me along would give him access to those answers, some of which I didn't have.

"Alright," I agreed knowing that if they did decide to kill me I would have to fight back and I really didn't want that, "give me three days. I don't want to just disappear of the face of the earth. I have obligations I need to meet. Please," I added that last part because Dean Winchester looked like he was about to protest.

Dean still looked like he was about to tell me to fuck off, but Sam, as angry with me as he was, seemed to be more understanding.

"Let her, Dean. We don't need to add to your record," he said.

"Which I actually can get cleared," I pointed out.

That seemed to perk the older one up a bit, but he still shook his head. Obviously he didn't trust that I could actually do it. I let him believe it, for the moment, but I was convinced that I could eventually wear him down.

"Okay, three days, but we get to stay with you. It'll be cheaper for us and Sammy here won't feel so bad about credit card fraud," Dean said in a faux cheery voice.

It meant I was on thin ice and that I had better prove to him that I was trustworthy. I knew, from the way Sam wasn't looking at me, that the younger Winchester trusted me to not go on a killing spree. That didn't mean he was happy with me, though, and I knew that I was going to have to face his ire the next day.

I followed them out of the house after leaving a text to Gibbs about the Goblin and the body. Silently, I bid farewell to the smidge of normalcy I had managed to cling to for five years.

* * *

"Sam and Dean Winchester? Are ya sure?" Detective Rachel Gibbs asked when I finished explaining everything to her.

I nodded and clasped my hands behind my back. Everyone knew who these two were, unfortunately.

"Dean Winchester was framed by a shapeshifter in St. Louis," I explained.

She nodded, "No, I believe you, Davis. I'm just surprised that they don't seem to trust you if their daddy knew ya."

"I think Sam knows I'm not evil, but Dean still thinks I'm a sort of witch," I said with a smile.

Gibbs smirked, "If that boy don't like witches, then don't take 'im to OLIMPUS."

I laughed, "I won't."

There was a pregnant pause shared between us. Neither knew what to say. I did know, from the way Detective Gibbs shifted in her seat and stared down at her paper-ridden desk that she was looking for a way to word how she felt without sounding too sappy. I understood because I faced the same problem. Gibbs and I were a lot alike. It was why she liked me so much.

"You sure ya don't want me to vouch for ya to them kids?" she finally asked.

I nodded, "No, I'll go with them. Dean'll probably think I'm controlling you or something."

She snorted, "At least their daddy taught them how ta be cautious. Go easy on them Davis; especially the younger one. I think he likes you."

"Yeah, probably not so much. Sam Winchester was… er… Dream Guy," I said awkwardly.

Gibbs fixed me with a stare before shaking her head, "Good lord, you can't get a break can ya. Granted ya should 'a told him."

"I know."

She sighed, "Well, we're gonna miss you. I'll let the professor know what happened when she gets back from Panama. Go get ready for your road trip."

And that had been my last conversation with Detective Rachel Gibbs. I regretted it. I liked the woman. I liked the Dallas PD. I liked solving murders, normal murders, and I definitely liked catching criminals. With the Winchesters, I would still be doing it, but the danger factor would sky rocket. Besides, it was back to hunting for me, apparently, and I hadn't wanted to go back full time. Of course, I was a freelance huntress now.

My aunt, Artemis, knew. I emailed her shortly after I made the boys comfortable in the living room. She agreed that maybe the Winchesters taking me along would be a good thing and offered to erase Dean's Federal record. I told her not to since Dean hadn't given consent and we left it at that.

When I returned to my apartment, I went to the front office to tell them that I was moving out and the furniture was for the next tenant to do what they pleased. The boys were still asleep in the living room when I arrived on my floor. I went about packing everything in my suitcase, fit to hold everything from my clothes, to books, to my various assortment of weapons. I packed everything I knew I would need.

I was about to sort through my refrigerator when Sam walked into the kitchen/dining room looking slightly bedraggled. I picked up the coffee I bought for him and Dean from Starbucks and handed him one of the cups.

"Good morning, he-who-walks-in-dreams," I said brightly.

He rewarded my joke with a half-hearted laugh. I smiled sadly and sat down across from him with my own half-drunk mocha clutched in my hand. We sat together silently and I waited for him to voice what he'd been wanting to ask me since last night.

"You know, coffee won't change anything, right?" he asked.

I shrugged and waited for him to continue.

"Why didn't you tell me it was you?" he asked.

I sighed, "Because I'm trying to live a normal life among humans; as far away from the supernatural as I possibly can. You represent what I've been trying to get away from for five years."

"You still should have told me. I've been trying to contact you on my own for so long, and then when I do meet you, you just pretended that I didn't exist," he was quiet, but I could tell that he was trying not to yell.

"I didn't do what I did to hurt you, Sam, I'm sorry," I muttered after taking a sip of my coffee.

He gave a bitter laugh, "The funny thing is that I know you didn't, but it still hurt me anyway."

My eyes fluttered closed for a second before opening again and meeting Sam's gaze.

"I know," I muttered.

He sighed and looked away from me, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Any food left or have you thrown it out?" he asked.

The turn of the conversation to a safer, neutral, topic relieved me. I hadn't really wanted to delve into the whole reason behind me trying to keep my distance from them.

"I have bacon, eggs, fruit, yogurt, and three types of juice," I said, ticking off the list on my fingers.

He was silent for a moment. The way his brows slanted down slightly told me that he was weighing his options. His eyebrows lifted and his lips parted slightly when he came to a conclusion

"Do you have spinach?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"I could go for an omelet, if that's okay," he said.

I stood up and padded towards the refrigerator.

"Okay, do you know what Dean would like?" I asked.

A small chuckle reached my ears and I smiled behind the refrigerator door. I managed to get something positive out of him.

"Dean likes a lot of bacon, but I think he'll go for the omelet if you put bacon in it," he suggested.

"Alright," I conceded.

We weren't okay, not by a long shot, but he seemed to tolerate me for the moment. I was fine with that.

**Like it? Hate it? DESPISE IT? Have questions? Review and let me know!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Supernatural Visions**

**Chapter 2**

**Shadows in the Night**

**Author's Note: Sooo, I'm definitely going to be using the month of May to its fullest, because apparently this is the month when my muse strikes in waves and I can update everything. The chapter sort of tapers out at the end, mostly because I wanted to get this out of the way so I can get to all of the good stuff (and the next story where things really begin to pick up). Anyway, if you are not a fan of AU then be warned that what I took from the episode "Shadows" had been altered to fit the fact that there is, in fact, a third party character in the episode who happens to be an elf. I haven't completely diverged from the series, yet, but it'll start happening the more I write.**

* * *

I had to give it to Dean Winchester, he had amazing taste in music. I mean, if I had to be stuck in the back of a 67 Chevy Impala with two hunters, one of which still seemed to be able to enter my dreams at night, I might as well have enjoyed myself. This ranged from me teasing Sam and Dean to Dean and I singing Metallica at the tops of our lungs for the mere pleasure of annoying Sam.

It took poor Dean a few days to warm up to me, but in the end he calmed down enough to know that I wasn't about to off him and his brother. He still refused to let me call my aunt and remove him criminal record despite the multiples times I'd told him that his stubbornness would come back to bite him. I should know.

But Dean came up with a good rebuttal and I couldn't refute it without coming off as some forceful little minx. So, I laid down in the back of the car and either listened to my ipod classic or amused myself by annoying my captors. I might have come voluntary, but that didn't mean I couldn't make them pay for being mistrustful idiots.

After the first week, I managed to convince them to let me help on a hunt. They kind of needed my help anyway, that ghost was a frickin' bitch to get rid of, and apparently the fact that I could make salt spring from the ground and attack the thing endeared them to me. And the fact that, when I threw a fireball at it, the thing actually blew up might have also showed them I wasn't useless and that I was also under a strict "offense/defense" only policy where my powers were concerned. Dean still thought I was a witch and wasn't too keen on believing that I was what I said I was. Elves weren't widely known, even among hunters, and half the time hunters actually met us they thought we were witches and wizards. Some OLIMPUS hunters were, admittedly, but not the type that most hunters actually think of when they see them.

Actually, the correct idea would be Harry Potter witches and wizards… Though most of those guys used anything that they could get their hands on as a source of focus for their powers.

But, don't tell Dean Winchester this. He doesn't believe anything that's actually right in front of his face. Could be a Winchester thing, because convincing Sam that he managed to inherit the ability to use elven magic was impossible, in dreams and out of them.

Oh yeah, let's talk about Sam and how, at that moment, he was still pissed off at me. I mean he believed that I was an elf, he knew me far longer than Dean did, and admitted that I probably wasn't a threat to them. However, he was as mad as I'll get out because I omitted the fact that I recognized him back in Dallas. Not that he didn't have a reason to be, in fact I would say he was completely justified, but man… that boy could hold a frickin' grudge!

And he can sulk. It was actually kind of cute and, after Dean relaxed around me enough to admit a few Brianna truths, even he thought Sam was being a bit ridiculous. Thus, Samuel Winchester was teased by his brother for not even recognizing his "Dream Girl" right off the bat. Granted, Dean teased the both of us about that and I think he did it just to be an ass.

Asshole.

We were in Chicago for this part of the tale. Dean and I were scoping the menu of a little diner and Sam was sifting through the newspaper muttering about this and that under his breath. Well, I could hear what he was saying and most of it revolved around "Good grief".

"Hey, check this out," Sam said and pushed the newspaper under Dean and I's noses.

We sent him identical pouts before glancing down at the opened paper. Suddenly food was temporarily forgotten as we leaned over our menus to read the article and inspect the picture.

"Torn to shreds with no sign of a break in?" I asked.

"Yep! The police and the alarm company are both stumped," Sam said.

"Hmm, could be our case. Thing is, how do we get in?" Dean asked.

I smirked and leaned back in my seat, "Me, naturally!"

I took out my purse and placed the string of badges that I never threw away onto the table feeling very satisfied with myself. Sam and Dean gaped.

"You had these on you all this time and didn't bother using them?" Dean asked.

I shrugged, "Before now, the archeological research of modern culture thing worked fine. Besides, I actually do record the evidence and log it into various essays that I'm working on, so my alias is covered. This will take a little finesse, so I figured that it would be in our best interest to use these guys. OLIMPUS hunters have badges of all types of agencies from the different countries we're assigned to. I've been with CIA, FBI, and NCIS mostly, but I have also worked with ICE, the DOD, and DHS."

Sam simply shook his head and looked away from the array of badges and IDs that littered the table. Dean, on the other hand, inspected each and every one of them with an air of reverence I knew every con artist would sport when appreciating the amount of inside forging that my people did. Well, we didn't forge our IDs, but we did know all of the directors… and the president, Bush I think he was called. The second Bush I think. The son or something. I never really paid attention. My aunt was normally the one who briefed the president elects when they took office. The hunters and I normally dealt with the directors of the various agencies we worked with.

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered, "think you can manage to get us some of these?"

I smiled brightly and replied, "Sure! After you let me get your record cleared!"

He scowled in my direction and picked up his menu again to inspect the contents. I rolled my eyes and took a quick glance at my badges. The FBI badge should work.

I picked it and my ID up and took out my wallet, placing the ID over my driver's license. After that, I clipped the badge to my belt just before my hip, the usual place most Feds kept them.

"Word of advice to you guys, just clip your badges on your belts where they can be both easily hidden and easily shown. Gun holsters go under the jacket and attached at the back belt preferably on the side easily reached by your dominant hand. Don't show your IDs, just your badge, but keep it on anyway just in case they ask for them," I suggested feeling the need to avoid another shitstorm like the one in Dallas where we all first officially met.

Sam nodded but didn't look at me or make a reply. That both annoyed and hurt me for a reason that I didn't fully understand. I figured, at the time, that it mostly had something to do with losing that companionship we had when all we did was meet in the world of dreams. But, I accepted the fact that this distance between us had a lot to do with me deciding to ignore the fact that I knew him and not running up to him and telling him exactly who I was… or showing him… or something. This whole thing just reminded me how bad I was at emotional relationships. Casual friendships I could handle. Frienemies, like with what was going on between me and Dean, I could handle. This… whatever it was between myself and Sam was the most awkward thing in the word and I needed to figure out how to balance it.

"Right, got it, act like a Fed," Dean said, "I think I'll order apple pie."

I rolled my eyes, "No, you and Sam are going to stand there and attempt to look competent. I'll do the talking."

I glanced down at my menu and then nodded to myself before stating to the whole table, "Blueberry pie and a spot of chocolate chip pancakes with maple syrup. And a mocha."

Dean whistled, "Aren't you a hungry little hippo?"

I glared at him before nudging him in the side, "Oye! I have a very fast metabolism! It needs the sustenance!"

"Sure it does!" teased Dean before turning to his brother, "What're you having Sammy?"

"The breakfast special," Sam replied curtly, "And espresso."

Dean blinked and I sent him a smirk. He then glanced at me with a curious look on his face.

"Out of curiosity, why didn't you get the breakfast special? I thought you loved bacon."

I laughed, "Yes, but I wanted to pie more."

He thought for a second before nodding. Apparently that seemed like it was an acceptable answer.

"Well, I'll just go order that for ya, right?" he looked around and was met with my silence and Sam's.

He shook his head and muttered a final "right" before heading off to the counter to order. I glanced over at Sam and noted his sulky mood. An impatient breath escaped past my lips and I placed my menu in the middle of the edge of the table. If he was being awkward like this on purpose, he was doing a damned good job of it.

"So, you went to Stanford?" I asked genuinely curious.

"Yeah, pre-law," he replied.

And cue the awkward silence.

"Where did you go? To college?" he asked.

Hmm, apparently he felt the silence and deeply as I did.

"Well, I received my bachelors degree at Yale University in Historical Studies with a preference in culture and myths about twenty years ago. I received my Masters at U. T. Dallas ten years ago and I was searching for good colleges to receive my Doctorate when you lot came along," I explained.

He sighed and from the look on his face I could tell that I obviously said something wrong. He finally looked at me and I could see just how stressed out about the entire situation he actually was.

"What is it with every conversation we have? I bring up something as neutral as where you went to college and then the fact that you're not human gets involved!" he snapped.

I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms. This was really starting to get ridiculous.

"Well what exactly did you expect when someone looks you in the eye and tells you that they just so happen to be an elf. You know, like the ones Tolkien wrote about? We're as close to immortal as you can possibly get," I said.

Of course at this point I was five seconds away from slapping the boy for being an ass about this. I mean, for one, who the hell was he to fucking judge? He was the one with psychic abilities! He was the one who managed to wheedle his way into my dreams! I didn't actively seek him out! I didn't want to be brought back into this hunting life and I most certainly didn't want to interfere with his!

"Which shouldn't even be possible," he pointed out.

I let out another breath in order to attempt to keep my patience. He really was intentionally trying to piss me off now.

"Take it up with the Creator. He tends to work in mysterious ways, but I heard that He'll stop every important thing He's doing just so He can spoon feed you everything there is to know about the universe," I remarked sarcastically before going on in a serious note, "Look, Sam, half the stuff you deal with shouldn't be possible. Granted, half the stuff you kill are evil, but that's been the story of my life too. My people just happen to live for thousands upon thousands of years unless we're killed in battle, or cursed, or commit suicide. What did you think that everything I told you the first time I explained this to you was a lie?"

He had that sulky puppy look on his face now and it was getting harder for me to maintain a severe air. I mean, the guy was just too cute for his own good sometimes!

"No, I didn't, I also didn't expect to actually meet you," he muttered.

"Well, that makes two of us," I said.

"Then why? Why didn't you at least let me know it was you when you first saw me?" he asked and I could hear the note of desperation in his voice.

Finally, I decided on part of the truth. Not all of it. He didn't really need to know the whole reason, but part of it would probably work wonders on our relationship right about now.

"Because people I touch tend to die if I'm not careful. There are some nasty beings after me and I didn't want you getting involved. I was living in Dallas as an ex-hunter for a reason, Sam. I didn't do this heavy duty stuff anymore," I explained.

He sighed, this time in what looked to be defeat, and I could tell that, while he was still somewhat miffed at me, he wanted to end this argument as much as I did.

"Alright, I get it, I do, but it doesn't make you trying to run away any easier," he said.

I shot him a sympathetic look and was about to reply when Dean came skipping back over to us with our food held in two trays. I sent him a sympathetic smile. I really had ordered a lot of food.

"So, there is pie, you two seemed to have finally worked something out, and coffee is in abundance! I think all is right in the world for the moment!" Dean chirped.

"You were gone this long intentionally, weren't you?" Sam asked.

Dean grinned while setting our plates down in front of us, "The least I could do for my little brother!"

"Jerk!"

"Bitch!"

I pinched the bridge of my nose and said, "By the grace of the Triune!"

* * *

It took two days of preparation before we could even enter the building. I chose FBI to use as our cover, so that involved me calling Erik Fulker, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to let him in on the case, itself; explaining that I worked with OLIMPUS. When we received the green light, Sam, Dean, and I first began at the Chicago Police Department and had the detectives working on the case debrief us on the situation.

The briefing period was short, but our search through the evidence lockers and crime scene photos took a while. Sam and Dean weren't used to working with gloves and secondary information. Normally they managed to find a way into the crime scene using some outlandish story. This is why having me around offered a few perks. It always paid to have allies in the various government agencies.

Once we procured the keys to the crime scene, we finally pulled up to the victim's apartment complex on our third day in Chicago in Dean's Impala. I had been unsure about the car for a few hours, but didn't voice my concerns to the boys. It was black, but it wasn't Federally standardized and I hadn't been certain if the car was too out of character or not. In the end, people didn't comment on it, so I decided to let it go.

"This looks like the place," Sam said while getting out of the driver's side of the car.

I was organizing my flash camera and notepad, making sure that the battery worked and the pen had some ink, before I moved to open one of the car's backdoors. I nudged Dean who had slid out of his car just as I was getting out and handed him the camera.

"You'll be taking pictures," I said pointedly before walking around the car towards Sam who stood on the sidewalk straightening out his tailors black suit.

I pointedly ignored the fact that he looked rather hot in the suit and held out the notepad and pen, "You can take notes."

I headed towards the building while continuing my short lecture over my shoulder, "Follow my lead, don't talk unless you have to, and remember to take pictures of both the site of the body and the entire room. If you see anything the police might have missed don't forget to get out a pair of latex gloves and an air tight bag to put the thing in."

I rang for the landlady who the Chicago Police Department phoned earlier that day to let her know three FBI agents were heading over to the building. I had the key just in case she wasn't there.

The landlady was there to let us in.

"I wasn't aware that the FBI were involved," she said.

I nodded and replied, "There have been several unexplained murders in houses with this particular security system and we're following up with our own investigation to see if there's a connection."

"That's worrisome, think it may be some sort of serial killer?" she asked.

"We don't know yet, ma'am, but checking out this and other recent crimes scenes will let us know," I said.

She let us into the flat with Sam and Dean remaining silent behind me. That was a relief, at least. It meant they took my advice seriously. That was definitely a good sign that our working relationship was heading into the right direction.

"I have to say, if it's the alarms themselves, I think they're about as useful as boobs on a man," she remarked stoutly while Dean began to walk around the room taking pictures of the perimeter.

I smiled to myself. He might have been doing a rookie job of it, but it was a passable rookie job and one I could work with. Sam looked slightly uncomfortable by the landlady's comment and cleared his throat before asking one of the acceptable generalized questions I had pre-approved before arriving.

"The police report said that you were the one to find the body, ma'am?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied.

"And that was a few days after the time of death?"

"Her work called and said she hadn't shown up, so I came up here to see if she were sick and noticed the smell right away."

I nodded at that while Sam dutifully wrote down the conversation. There was still a bit of residual odor that alerted me to the fact the deceased's body had been there for at least three days. Long enough to acquire a reeking stench; especially if it was in pieces like the photos of the body had shown.

Speaking of the body, Dean had moved to the beginnings of the death scene, snapping pictures of the blood spatters on the floor. I bent to inspect them. There was the pool of blood where the torso had been left to bleed out, a few fragments of hairy blood on one end of the room, and more splatters.

I blinked. Strange, the splatters seemed to only branch out in two directions.

My eyes followed the pattern the trail of blood created. I pursed my lips and crossed my arms.

"Was there any sign of a break in?" Sam asked.

"That's the strange bit, isn't it? The windows were both closed and locked. None of them looked like they'd been moved in months with fall being as cold as it is. The door was latched in several places and the alarm was set. Nothing was out of the ordinary save for Meredith being dead and all," she explained.

"And no signs of struggle?" I finally asked while exchanging an uneasy look with Dean.

He noticed the blood too.

"No, everything was left in pristine condition, except Meredith and the floor," the landlady said.

Dean and I were frowning at the floor. The blood made a pattern, a symbol, and I was trying to remember where I'd seen it before.

"You mind if we take some time to give this place a good thorough search. Just to make sure the police didn't miss anything?" I asked.

"Sure, knock yourselves out," she replied and left.

We waited a few minutes before getting the EMF detector Dean hid in his pocket out for a run. He started scanning the room while Sam bent down next to be to inspect the blood.

"So, a killer walks in and out of an apartment – no weapons, prints, nothin'," Dean remarked while walking the perimeter of the room again.

"Rips a poor girl to shreds, only takes her heart as a souvenir," I continued along with his musing.

We did that a lot, mostly because we thought so much alike that it was creepy… to Sam at least. Dean and I just rolled with it, figuring we just had a similar way of approaching life.

"And then manages to make the blood – spatters and all – morph into some sort of symbol," he finished.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that's not possible," Sam interjected.

"No, I don't even know Knight Elves who can manage to be this precise. They mostly just take the blood and draw what they want with a paint brush," I said.

The shape of the blood was bothering me, so I decided to sketch it out better on the ground. I waved my hand and lines of ice began to creep across the bloody carpet. Dean whistled.

"Dude you have no idea how surreal this looks," he muttered.

I rolled my eyes without breaking my concentration. It didn't take much for me to remain focused on my magic anymore. The power, that had been with me since birth, was so much a part of me now that I barely had to think about using it. When I was done tracing, we gaped. I almost slapped my right hand to my forehead.

I knew the symbol. It was Zoroastrian.

"Well shit," I muttered.

* * *

"Wait, what did you say this was?" Dean asked after choking on a draft of his beer.

Sam had his laptop out sifting through various Zoroastrian information websites. I was drinking whiskey, on my fifth shot, and had one of Professor Moruni's books out on the table with the picture of the creature found in Zoroastrian mythology.

"A daeva, they're shadow demons, like wraiths, and the mortal eye can't see their full corporeal form; just their shadow. Which is why I got this out so you both can take a look," I tapped my figure against the stiff parchment page where the professor carefully inked out the picture of what the shadow demon looked like.

Dean and Sam leaned over to look at the thing with identical frowns on their faces. Both of them made a face at the grotesque thing and backed into their side of the booth after looking at it. I smiled.

"Well, at least we know why it likes to remain invisible," Dean muttered and then took another sip of beer.

Sam closed his laptop and motioned for the book. I slid it over to him and he heaved the thick pages onto the lip of his computer and scanned through the content.

"Says that, you can summon them and control them for a limited time with just the symbol, but you need to get a human heart, liver, and stomach to keep up the control… if you're a mortal. If you're immortal then all you need is the symbol," he cited.

"So, either we're dealing with some witch-," Dean began.

"Sorcerer," I immediately corrected.

"Whatever. Or we're dealing with a knight elf," Dean finished.

"Or worse," I suggested.

They stared at me. I shrugged.

"What?" I asked.

Sam blinked before asking, "What, exactly, is worse then that?"

I leaned forward, slightly entertained by the fact that they would ask. My lips quirked up at the corners as I rested my chin on the heel of my hand.

"Would you like that numerically or alphabetically?"

From the looks on their faces, I could tell that they'd rather not.

"So, anyway," I said while drawing the conversation back to the situation at hand, "do we know whether the previous victim was a daeva target?"

Sam nodded and pushed the book back to me before answering, "There was a first victim named Ben Swardstrom. He was found mutilated in his house last month. I've already asked the precinct for the crime photos, and it looks like the same symbol of blood was found around the body."

I nodded and traced the edges of the tome with my fingers, thinking. Evidently this was a mortal target, but why these specific people? What was the motivation behind controlling Zoroastrian shadow demons? There had to be a motive somewhere, but I wasn't sure where exactly the connection lay.

"We need more than this… we need a motive and a suspect. So far the police can't figure out anything and they're too busy trying to keep their members alive from gang violence to really head off a good investigation on this," I said finally.

Dean agreed, "Yeah, you should have seen the relief on the homicide detective's face when we told him that the Feds were picking this up. Apparently, there's a triple gang spat going on in downtown freaking everyone out."

We both looked at Sam for his input, but he was glancing over my head at something behind me. Dean and I looked gazes before following Sam's line of vision.

"What?" Dean asked.

Sam stood up and walked around the table towards whatever he'd seen. I shot another confused look at Dean before the two of us followed Sam to where he was going. Sam stopped at a table where a single girl with short blond hair (pixy-cut) sat nursing what looked to be straight vodka.

"Meg?" Sam asked while Dean and I slowed our approach.

She turned around and shot him the biggest, wide blue eyed smile complete with stark white teeth and all she could give him. It was like my senses were suddenly in freak-out overload. An overall bad feeling (as cheesy as that sounds) overtook me and I fixed the girl with a wary look. Who was this and why did my body suddenly felt like going on the defense?

"Sam! Is that you? Oh my God!" she stood up and latched onto him with a tight hug.

An unpleasant warm feeling started to curdle in my stomach, but I clamped down on that the instant it made itself known. I needed to focus.

Sam, for his part, seemed just as wary as I was.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

I decided that it might be better to intervene then let him flounder up a story. I walked up to them with my arms crossed.

"He's working, on a case, with me," I sent her my "sweetest" smile.

Said smile was rumored (by my cousin, mostly) to curdle milk and make babies cry. She looked over and down (yep! Everyone's taller than me on a usual basis) at me with a puzzled expression on her cute baby face. That little unpleasant feeling welled up again, but I stamped it back down, determined to remain professional.

"A case?" she asked.

I moved the side of my jean jacket to reveal the FBI badge clipped to my belt.

"Special Agent Brianna Davis. Sam, here, is Probationary Agent Winchester. His brother, behind me, is Very Special Agent Dean Winchester," I introduced.

She looked floored, but the way she looked floored seemed fake for some reason. It was like she was using one emotion to hide a different one. Interesting. I glanced up at Sam and noticed that he was watching her too with a smile plastered on his face that didn't quite reach his eyes. He locked gazes and I suddenly understood. He was watching her just as closely as I was.

"Oh, well, nice to meet you, I guess," she said in a measured cheerful voice.

"But Meg, what about you, I thought you were going to California?" Sam asked.

She smirked and raised an eyebrow, "Interrogating me, Winchester?" she laughed at the blush her comment induced from Sam and I kept my face carefully neutral, "I came, I saw, I conquered as they say. Moved onto here for a while."

"Oh! When was that?" he asked in a voice that seemed a bit too cheerful.

I let out a frustrated sigh. He was really bad at acting.

"Oh, about a month ago, why?" she asked.

He shrugged, "Just curious. So, you from here, or something?"

She shook her head, "No, Andover, Massachusetts. But gosh, Sam what were the odds of us running into each other again?"

Yeah, I thought, what were the odds of total and complete strangers suddenly finding themselves again in this strange world? I almost smirked at that because the odds of them meeting up again were a lot less likely than the odds of Sam and I actually meeting in real life instead of Dream World. And I knew that, where Sam and I were concerned, our physical meeting probably involved a lot of divine intervention, which meant that we were fated to meet. Either Meg's situation was the same way or something else was going on.

Determined to keep up with my irritated boss persona, I rolled my eyes and slapped Sam on his left shoulder, the one facing me.

"You know what, Probie? I'll let you talk to pixie-girl over here and I'll take Very Special Agent Dean to the bar to interview the bartender," I stepped away from the situation, grabbed Dean by the back of the neck before anyone could really comment, and dragged the shorter brother away from the scene.

At the bar, after the bartender told us about Meredeth's work ethic – a good one – we both watched Sam and Meg's exchange with identical frowns on their faces.

"It could be innocent, maybe one of those one in a million chances?" he remarked.

I pushed out air through my nose and pursed my lips. He could be right, I conceded, but he and I knew that it was just a product of wishful thinking. That one in a million chance already happened… with me. Either Sam was just that lucky or something else was going on.

"I don't know," I finally said, "but I do know that Sam's a big boy and can take care of himself. We'll let him deal with her and focus on the issue at hand."

"Which started right as Meg moved here, apparently," Dean observed.

He sent me a look just as Sam moved away from Meg and back towards us. I understood where he was going with that comment, but I chose not to reply. Sam was approaching anyway and neither of us were certain about anything concerning Meg and didn't want to alarm him – or piss him off. I was still on thin ice where Sam was concerned and I didn't want to tread on an unwanted crack.

* * *

We were out of the bar and walking back to the Impala when Dean finally decided to broach the topic of Meg.

"Who the hell was she?" Winchester the elder asked in a tone that was similar to how my mental voice sounded at the moment.

Sam, for his part, looked incredibly uneasy and I felt… oddly satisfied about that. Something about that Meg character rubbed me the wrong way.

"I don't really know. I mean, we met on the side of the highway after our argument a few months ago and we were, well, strangers. Meeting up with her again feels… weird. I don't know. I only met her once so…" he trailed off, obviously uncertain about how to go about voicing the unease both Dean and I could see plainly on his face.

That was the brilliant thing about Sam I always liked. Sometimes, in every day things, he was amazingly easy to read. It was something we had in common, though I had a harder time completely masking my emotions, which was why I always mustered up different ones to hide how I really felt. My poker-face method was the reason why I could tell Meg was acting contrary to how she really felt. It usually takes one to know one and I had about seventy years of experience.

"You notice the way she reacted when Brianna said you were a Federal Agent?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded, "I think there might be something going on here."

"Yeah," I interjected, "the fact that she suddenly appeared out of nowhere while we've been investigating supernatural related deaths is a little alarming."

Dean stopped at the driver's side of the Impala and stared down at the roof of the car with a pensive expression creased on his face. Finally he shook his head.

"Coincidences do happen," he remarked.

"To us?" Sam asked incredulously.

Dean shrugged, "True."

I opened the left backseat door and slid into the car. The other two followed.

"How about this. Sam, since Meg's your maybe-maybe-not friend, you can watch her. Dean and I will run a background check on her while we're at it. Did you get her last name?" I asked.

Sam turned to look at me from the front passengers' seat and nodded, "Yeah, Masters."

"Good, Dean and I'll make some calls, you go on the stake out."

"Sounds like a solid plan if ever I've heard one," Dean said.

With that, we drove off back to the hotel.

* * *

About an hour later Dean and I were sifting through a troubling missing persons file on Meg Masters. According to the police report.

"Well, she didn't lie about where she lived," I said after reading through an interview with the younger sister.

"Yeah, but she obviously lied about why she ran away. I mean look at this, happy family, straight A student, president of her college's art club, this girl was allowed to do a lot of things within reason," Dean noted.

"Mhmm," I said while narrowing in on the lines near the end of the FBI's interview with the sister, "Well, this is interesting, it says here that she was acting strange a few weeks before she disappeared. Memory gaps, neurotic behavior that went unexplained, mysterious absences; something was obviously up."

"Think it might have been a cult thing? She get caught up in the wrong crowd and all?" Dean asked.

I frowned and opened another interview file. Something about this whole thing screamed supernatural. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite pinpoint what that was.

"Well, call Sam and tell him that his lady friend is probably some psycho sorceress. I honestly hope that's all it is," I muttered the last part mostly to myself.

I heard Dean mutter in reply, "I really don't want to know what you think is worse."

I quietly laughed at that while scanning through the interview with the boyfriend of Meg Masters… oh… she apparently had a boyfriend and a girlfriend. My eyebrows raised for a moment before I mentally shrugged it off. She was an artist, I figured, from my past experiences artists tended to be more liberal in one way or another. Strange trend, but a true one.

From what both lovers said, Meg had seemed stressed out about something a few months before her disappearance. Something about a major art project that could make or break her career and it took me a few more clicks to find out what particular line of work she planned on getting into. From what the report said, she was going to specialize in photography, film, costume design, and cosmology. I nodded to myself. In order for her to make it in the film industry, she'd have to be recognized by a head producer. It seemed like the college she was going to had a few lesser known producers visiting. People from the Independent side of film and the closer she came to presentation day, the more stressed out and elusive she became. I finally found something that provided a lead. Meg's girlfriend had found a strange book, some dark thing, that had a bunch of weird spells inside. This was a few days before Meg started acting strange.

Human spell books tended towards sorcery. Humans didn't have the ability to even use sorcery without becoming subjugated to the forces of darkness. If Meg Masters offered herself in hopes of gaining success, then the girl we were currently dealing with was most likely heavily influenced by the very things she sought to control.

I looked up from my screen when Dean came back into the room, shutting the lid on his phone.

"So, I let Sam know that little Miss Masters' has a missing person's case revolving around her and her condition leading up to her disappearance. Sam says that she's left her apartment, so he's going to go check up on her now. Find anything else?" he asked.

I nodded, "Yeah, Meg had a boyfriend and a girlfriend and the girlfriend found a spell book two or three days before Masters started acting strange."

Dean whistled, "Think it might be possession?"

I shrugged, "Maybe, I'm not ruling it out, but I don't think so since she's using ingredients to keep control of the daevas. But, I've been wrong before, so I'm not going to discount anything. The most likely case is that she's not."

"Hmm, yeah," he glanced down at the copies of the police reports on our two vics.

Something seemed to catch his eye because he picked one of them up, gaped at it, and then snatched up the other. I waited for him to say something, sitting back in my chair with my arms crossed. Finally he glanced up and it took me a second to blink back the shock. His face was white, like he'd seen a ghost.

"I just found the connection between our two victims. They're both from Lawrence, Kansas," he said in a would-be-calm voice.

I hoped I looked as confused as I felt. I must have since he seemed to snap out of his horrified daze enough to elaborate.

"Sam and I are from there. Our mom was killed there, by a yellow-eyed demon," he explained.

As understanding dawned, I once again found myself trying to remember why the whole yellow-eyed demon part of the explanation alarmed me so much. Even then, the situation suddenly changed from a regular hunt to something far more sinister.

"Well, damn!" I said.

* * *

Sam practically ran into the hotel room with a wild-eyed look on his face. Dean and I stood up simultaneously as he approached us.

"I have to tell you something!" both boys said together.

I crossed my arms and snorted, "Well, that was a twin moment if ever I saw one."

Dean rolled his eyes and nodded to Sam, "You first."

"Meg's controlling the daevas," Sam said.

"Yeah, Davis and I kind of figured that one out already. What else?" Dean asked.

Sam closed his eyes for a moment and it took me a few seconds to realize that he was trying to remember something. I cocked my head to one side, curious. From the first dream we shared together I'd gleaned that the man had excellent memory, but I hadn't seen first hand just how good it was. Dean and I exchanged a glance and from the bright gleam in his eyes I knew that whatever I was about to witness made the older brother proud.

"She said, '_I don't think you should come'_ and waited a minute before adding, '_because the brothers are here, I didn't know they were in town'_. She paused again for a second, listening to whoever was talking to her and then told them that she would be waiting for them to arrive – here. She also added a few lines about Brianna. '_Another thing, sir, the Winchesters weren't alone. Apparently, they're traveling with a supposed federal agent. I can't get a pin on her. No one seems to know who this Agent Brianna Davis is. What should I do about her?'_" Sam then paused from his recall and looked at me, "They don't even know what you really are, but they're going to apparently 'deal with you' the same as Dean and me."

My mind raced as I got over my astonishment concerning Sam's near-perfect (actually, so far it seemed perfect) audible memory and considered the information he gave us. Something was up, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"She's also controlling the daevas with a black alter," Sam added.

I nodded while continuing to mull things over. Dean chuckled.

"So, Sammy boy has the hots for the bad girls. So, she was talking to someone, see who it was?" he asked.

Sam shook his head, "No, she was talking to this person over a bowl of blood. They were giving her orders, but I can't be sure if whoever that was is the one actually in control of everything."

I hummed in response but continued to mull things over. Something was up, obviously, I still couldn't put my figure it out. We had deaths from people who were born in Lawrence, Kansas, the same town Sam and Dean were from. This Meg person, who Sam had met weeks ago on the side of the road suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the Chicago a month after the two found me and drove north from Texas with me in toe. This person used blood scrying…

I stopped my thoughts there and focused on the scrying. Sorceresses and Sorcerers were known for using blood to scry with, but it didn't necessarily have to be done with a bowl. But, Sam and Dean tended to go off of what they read about in the witchcraft spell books and internet myth. I knew things from a controlled database available for OLIMPUS hunters and, also, Professor Moruni's books. Naturally, I'd trust my resources over the ones on the internet. They'd been around several thousand years longer.

I brought my attention back to the blood scrying. I pushed my botton lip between my teeth.

Meg, if she was a sorceress, could still be new to the finer points of sorcery; i.e. that she didn't have to use a huge warehouse of pretty trinkets to get the job done. But, the thing was, if she got mixed up in a coven, the experienced (most likely containing a Knight Elf or a former witch or wizard) would have told her that eventually, with practice, a pewter goblet wouldn't be needed for scrying. A wooden bowl would have done fine, so long as it got the job done.

Thing was, unless one happened to be familiar with how the supernatural dark side actually worked, no one would know this; especially not two boys from Kansas who learned everything there was to know about the supernatural from a revenge-driven father. I closed my eyes. Sometimes I really hated being over a hundred years old, because experience honed my gut instinct to the point where it was almost infallible. Almost, but quite enough to hone in on a few obvious certainties (obvious to me) and draw conclusions.

"Lawrence, Kansas," Sam said.

I tuned back into the conversation right about the time Dean was telling Sam about the interesting lead he discovered.

"It's a trap," I said bluntly.

They stared at me and I cocked an eyebrow, "What? It is! Think about it for a second! You have two vics with a birth connection. The same birth connection you guys have, no less. Then there are the daevas. Clearly supernatural beings committing supernaturally obvious murders. I've been around the block long enough to know that when we're dealing with something this obvious, something's up. I mean, hell, even the Goblin didn't leave an obvious mark. The only reason why we knew it was supernatural was because of the brain fluid. This is too dirty; especially for a sorceress in cahoots with a demon or a coven leader. Besides, there's no obvious reason for Meg to control a daeva for her own gain, so obviously the motivation has to be something else. And guess who's involved in my primary theory?"

"Okay," Sam interjected, recovering from know-it-all Brianna first, "what do you suggest?"

I smiled one of my bright, happy, smiles that depicted false joy and masked just how much vindictive pleasure I was feeling at that moment. My cousin said that it scared the pants off of him. Well, he used a cruder phrase than that, but I didn't feel like remembering cuss words at that moment. I was too busy cackling maniacally in my head.

"Oh, we should walk right into it."

Dean blinked while Sam just stood there with his mouth hanging open clearly too shocked to quite digest what I'd just said.

"I'm sorry, but did you just say that you wanted us to walk right in to a trap?" Dean asked.

I shrugged, "These guys might know I'm with you, but I doubt that they actually know what I am. My runes," I flashed my arm where I'd marked myself up with a sharpie earlier that day, "do more than mask my appearance. Anyone associated with demonic activity can't sense me at all. It's an elf thing."

Dean seemed to get what I was trying to convey, "The trap's for Sammy and I. We're the bait, you're the wild card."

"Hell no, we're not pitting you against a bunch of daevas just because Meg can't figure you out!" Sam snapped suddenly.

"Not your call, Winchester," I said coolly.

"Sam, this probably has everything to do with Yellow-Eyes. If it does, we need to get rid of the shadow problem we have right now before we can even hope to take care of Meg let alone the demon," Dean said.

Sam's face had that rigid lock around his jaw and forehead. His eyebrows drew in slightly and those green irises flashed. I felt bad, despite my annoyance at his current attitude towards my help. This was a good plan. It was probably a more solid plan then they could have come up with (dash in and hope) and having a proverbial wild card running around doing the unexpected against a bunch of shadow demons that are supposed to be invisible would seriously put Meg off her guard. Sam must have known this. He wasn't an idiot, was actually quite brilliant, and he was familiar enough with my mindset to know that I was at least ten steps ahead of my opponent in any given situation. Again, that came from fifty years of experience hunting as an OLIMPUS agent and then six more years of working with the Dallas PD. And I hadn't always assisted with homicides. Sometimes, I'd needed to help out in with a drug investigation or a kidnapping. It took me years upon years to fine-tune all of my observation and tactician kinks. They didn't have that experience, not yet at any rate, though Dean seemed to be more on board with this than Sam was. Dean, though, was also older and hadn't taken three and a half years off to go to college, as admirable a feat that was.

"Dean, I don't know if I need to remind you, but any… female… who tends to get in the demon's way usually gets killed," his tone could have cut steel.

I let out a sigh. He was talking about Jessica. Dean realized this too, because his entire demeanor slackened and his expression morphed from passive aggressive to guilt.

"Hey bro, look –," Dean began but he saw me shake my head.

I wanted him to. This wasn't a Dean-talk-with-Sam-to-make-it-all-better problem. Sam wouldn't listen to him; I knew this. I remembered from one of our dream-verse conversations how he complained about Dean not being able to understand where he was coming from. This would have escalated into an argument. That, in turn, would waist more time. Anyway, Sam needed reassurance from me and not Dean.

"Sam, let's go outside for a minute," I suggested.

He looked like a lost puppy and reminded me, again, why I sometimes couldn't say "yes" or "no" to him. The look always invoked a feeling at the base of my gut that spread throughout my body, warming me. I associated that, at the time, with sympathy because that was what it felt like it was.

"Fine," he muttered and moved for the door.

Dean shrugged, "Kay, while you're talking I'll just sort through weapons, right?"

Sam and I nodded, both of us distracted by each other, as cheesy as that sounded. He held the door open for me as I stepped out into the cool still-winter air of Chicago. Coming this far north, I sometimes had to remind myself about the climate differences between Chicago and Dallas. As someone whose familial element was fire, I enjoyed the warmth more than anything else. I still appreciated the cold (I couldn't feel it like mortals could), but that didn't mean I wanted to constantly live in it.

We sat, side-by-side, on a bench and allowed a traffic-filled silence to wrap around us. I closed my eyes and leaned against the back of the bench and listened. I heard several arguments, the screams of young babies, gunshots of rampant gangs, the voices of stressed out fathers worried about making ends meet for their families. For that moment, I allowed myself to let the smaller heroes and villains of life to center me and remind me about what I did and how it benefitted them in the end. The more I dealt with the spiritual warfare, the less of an effect it would have on them.

"What are you thinking about?" he finally asked.

I smiled, "People."

His laughter met my ears and I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. A wistful look replaced his stressed one.

"I miss this," he said softly.

I held out my hand, offering it to him, and Sam lifted his much larger one and encased it around mine. He felt cold and I narrowed my eyes in concern. He shook his head, indicating that he was fine.

"I know," I replied softly.

We sat there silently holding hands – a completely innocent gesture of friendly affection.

"I went to bed every night and tried to reach you before falling asleep. I tried everything from meditation to crystals, but I couldn't do it on purpose. Dean is great, he's my brother, but he's got problems of his own and you… you were kind of my impersonal friend I could talk to or just sit with and those dreams, or whatever they were, made things a little easier," he said.

I squeezed his hand gently, letting him know that I was paying attention. Sam was letting everything out in what Dean would identify as a "chick-flick" moment. To be honest, I would too. Sharing my feelings weren't exactly my strong point, but with Sam it was easier. Well, it was easier when he wasn't pissed at me.

"When I first saw you at the crime scene a month ago, I thought you looked familiar. And then, later, when you came and found us, I knew there was something familiar about you so I tried to see if I could jump into your dreams again that night. It didn't work, like usual, but I was frustrated. I wanted to know if it was you. Then, when you accidentally let your guise slip, I felt… hurt. You didn't tell me it was you and I didn't understand why. When Dean suggested we take you with us to keep an eye on you, I agreed, thinking that you could help us find dad and give me answers."

He fixed me with his puppy eyes (as I've officially dubbed them) and continued, "Today, seeing Meg, hearing about the daevas and the possibility of Yellow-Eyes coming to town, the idea that you could get killed in the crossfire finally dawned on me."

I smiled again and ran my thumb over his. Sam hadn't seen me actually fight in a real battle, so I wasn't surprised that he thought I could get killed. Then again, it was probably best that the really big incarnations of evil stayed far, far, away from him and Dean.

"Dean and I," he finished, "we get people killed. Women who get to know me, personally, whether they're my girlfriend or not, end up dead. I don't want that to happen to you."

I let another bout of silence descend between us so I could formulate everything that I wanted to say in one go.

"Sam, I can't say enough just how sorry I am about trying hide from you. I was being selfish. You lead a life I was trying to get away from and I knew that, should we meet and should you find out who I was, then my chance at normalcy would be shattered. In the process of thinking about myself, I hurt you. But, I can promise you this: now that you and Dean know me, you're not going to get rid of me that easily. Daevas? Please! I've fought Fallen Angels and won. Trust me, they're hard to kill. I will be fine. I just need to distract the monsters and Meg while either you or Dean, or both smash the alter. Once that happens, bye, bye Meg," I said in a calm, soothing, voice for his benefit.

The calmer I was, the less of a chance there would be for us to argue. He still looked about ready to try and defend his point, but I beat him to it.

"Sam, I promise, I'll be fine. It's you two I worry about the most. On every hunt, I pray, yes I pray, for both you and Dean's protection. When I go to bed, your safety's on my mind. Even while driving in the Impala I'm still alert, listening and watching for anything sinister that could attack us. Because, Sam, you're not the only one who attracts monsters, I do too, it's just mine tend to be all-powerful overlords of evil. Or assassins, or political bastards seeking my hand, or false gods; take your pick they're around. I'm one hundred and ten years old, Sam, I can take care of myself," that was all the assurance I could really give him without telling him about all of the other factors in my life that led me to hiding in Dallas, Texas.

There were some things that were best left buried in the past where they couldn't come and rear their ugly heads. Hopefully, at least; I was still skeptical about how long I could actually keep the evil that followed me around at bay.

"Side-effect of being an ex-huntress?" he asked.

I felt relieved. He wasn't going to argue with me! I laughed in response.

"You have no idea," I replied.

He chuckled lightly. After a moment, his mirth died down and he closed his eyes. Sam frowned again. When another precious moments passed, he opened his eyes and gave my hand a light squeeze.

"Alright, I'm trusting you, Bri," he finally relented, "Just… don't get killed."

I rolled my eyes, "You're such a killjoy!"

"Bri," he wasn't laughing and I realized that he'd meant every word.

All flames of humor that burned through my countenance died and my shoulders hunched forward. Maybe it was my general obliviousness, but I hadn't realized just how much Sam valued me as a friend – a true friend with no strings attached. I swallowed as the enormity of everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks leading up to that point in time hit me like a load of bricks.

"Sam, I promise, I will not die," I said.

I still didn't think he believed me, but considering that was all he and I had holding us together at that moment, I could take what I got. After this job was finished, though, I knew that we were definitely going to have to talk.

* * *

I scouted the warehouse first before leading Sam and Dean into the building. Meg was on the top floor with her little altar and I wasn't too keen on mimicking Sam's previous maneuver up the elevator shaft. Taking the stairs actually was an option for us due to my amazing rune drawing abilities (nothing really amazing about it). Besides, steel locks were easier to dissolve than iron.

The concrete stairs were precarious what with their crumbling cracks all up the suspended steps. We proceeded with caution and I strengthened wherever I could. Concrete was hard to keep steady, but I managed it.

We didn't see any daevas, so I figured that we at least had some sort of element of surprise. Whether or not that would be enough remained to be seen.

The top floor was just as decadent as the rest of the building. The only addition of it's disintegrating rot were the five daevas floating around the room in their natural grotesque forms. Sam and Dean drew out their guns and I followed suit. It was best to leave the elven-made knives I had hidden on my belt and up my sleeve disguised as various forms of jewelry and trinkets for later. The element of surprise was at least on me if not them.

Meg stood at the altar chanting. A shiver ran up my spine.

I decided that making the first move would work better than letting her talk. If she was chanting a connection to the night demons, then she probably already knew we were there.

"Meg Masters, put the goblet down and put your hands over your head," I ordered.

Sam and Dean were giving me confused looks, but I pointedly refrained from looking at them. Meg stopped chanting and turned around. She was smirking.

"Agent Davis, fancy meeting you here! I didn't realize you were a hunter too!" she said brightly.

The daevas circled and started to close in. I kept my gaze steady and pretended not to notice them.

"It's a bit of a hobby, now, turn over that altar and come with me quietly. You're under arrest for two homicides," I said.

"And what, exactly, are you going to do about the stories? I wasn't seen at either crime scene," she said sweetly.

"You know, you'd be surprised what we already know. Now, toss over the altar!"

She laughed, "I'm afraid I can't do that Agent Davis. I'm waiting for someone."

"Who?" asked Sam.

"You."

Three daevas pounced and before even I could avoid it, we were hit. I didn't black out, per say, but it definitely felt like I was lucid dreaming through the whole ordeal that followed (Meg tying us up). I was bound behind Dean to a pillar that supported the gaping roof above us while Sam was tied to a sturdier pillar. I had to give it to Meg, she knew which of the brothers was the strongest.

For a few minutes I pretended I was unconscious until both Sam and Dean stirred.

Dean came to first.

"Son of a bitch," came his trademark phrase I sometimes teased him about on a more lighthearted hunt than this.

"More like bitch of major bitches, ruler of the bitch race and leader of bitchtopia," I muttered grumpily.

He snorted, "Careful, she might take that as a compliment."

I laughed.

"He's right, you know," came Meg's voice from wherever she was in the front of the room.

I rolled my eyes before catching sight of one of the daevas floating around the room. The one I saw just passed the window. I blinked and the rest of the foggy haze that filled my head after being hit from behind cleared and I noticed a second one hanging out along the roof. My face remained passive. Best to keep in character. I felt at my binds. Rope.

I smirked. A quick burn should definitely get both Dean and I out.

"I take any insult as a compliment," Meg continued.

I didn't pay too much attention. Dean had been about to reply, but Sam groaned and distracted both of us.

"Sam?" Dean called.

"Yeah!" came his groggy reply.

"Your girlfriend's a bitch!"

I chuckled darkly. Yeah bitch didn't even begin to cut it.

"This whole thing was a trap. All of it. Even the victims being from Lawrence," Sam said to Meg.

Well, we knew that, but I knew him well enough to know that he was stalling for time, so I quickly went to work on my bonds. Just enough concentrated heat and the rope would burn just enough to cut me loose. In a few moments, I succeeded.

"The victims didn't actually mean anything. I just chose them to help draw you in. Granted, I wasn't exactly planning on a Federal Agent coming with you, but I'm not overly picky," she said.

Sam scoffed, "You killed those people for nothing."

"Honey, I've killed a lot more for a lot less," Meg replied.

I pondered that for a second while my eyes followed the daevas' flight paths. They weren't in attack mode, but that didn't mean anything. Meg killed more for less huh? By Fed accounts, she'd only been missing for a few months. How many people had she killed? Unless… unless she wasn't, actually, Meg Masters but someone wearing her body? I really hoped that wasn't the case.

I tapped Dean's hands, my signal to him to keep stalling.

"Okay, you trapped us! Good for you! Why don't you kill us already?" he asked.

From my vantage point where Meg hovered over Sam, I could see her lips quirk into a smirk. I rolled my eyes. That bitch was getting on my nerves. I saw another daeva floating in the corner.

"Bit slow on the uptake, Winchester. The trap isn't for you," she said.

"It's for dad," Sam finished with a glare in Meg's direction.

I made a show of shifting into a more comfortable position against the post while I craned my head to the other side of the room to check for more daevas. Nope! None on that side as far as I could see, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I tapped Dean's hands again, signaling that I was ready. Carefully, he severed his restraints.

Sam, from what I could see, had already taken a knife for the ropes.

"You boys are his weakness," Meg explained while the three of us began to execute our plan, "he lets his guard down around you and his emotions cloud his judgment. Having a pretty Federal Agent in the room will only make it worse, so I thank you both for adding her to the equation."

"Yeah, great, great, but can I point out a flaw in your little trap?" I asked.

I could see the daevas tense and I wondered if their little beastly minds figured something out about me. No matter, they couldn't do anything without Meg's say so and Meg didn't know what I was… yet.

She actually walked over to me and crouched down to where she could lean her face in close to mine. I smiled.

"My master's plan is perfect," she said.

I shook my head, "No, no it's not. You put something in this plan that you shouldn't have. Something that no one should ever have if they want a trap to be well executed."

She raised an eyebrow, "And what would that be?"

My smile fell into a self-satisfied smirk, "Me."

I brought my left arm around in a wide arch and whipped my fist across her temple. The momentum of the hit threw Meg into the floor and I stood up just as the daevas barreled to me.

"Sam, Dean, now!"

I held out my right hand and fire burst forth. The daevas didn't make noise, but I imagined that, if they could, they would have been screaming bloody murder. The flames couldn't kill them, I didn't intend to go that far, but I knew that they did hurt.

Meg lunged at me and I intercepted her punch and flipped her off her feet and onto her back. The resulting grunt signified that the impact left her winded. In all honesty, I was practically being gentle. As an elf I was strong enough to break her back if I chose to.

"You went after the wrong person," I said and glanced at the altar.

Sam flipped the altar over and I snuffed out my fire. The daevas dived, but not for me. Meg shrieked as she was dragged across the room and thrown out of one of the open windows. Sam, Dean, and I scrambled after her and peered over the edge. Meg was sprawled on the ground with a pool of blood slowly forming around her broken body. I winced.

"Having made that swan dive before, I can sympathize with how painful it is," I remarked.

Dean snorted, "Yeah, well this has officially turned me off blonds for a month."

Sam laughed, "I'd say."

Dean rolled his eyes and moved towards the stairs with a wave of his hand. Sam and I took that as his silent order for us to clean up while he brought the Impala around. I was about to head for the toppled table when Sam grabbed my arm, gently, and stopped me.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked.

I looked over at him with a confused from on my face, "Yeah, why?"

He reached out with his free hand and tentatively touched the back of my head. A searing, stinging, pain blossomed up the lower part of my cranium and I drew in a sharp wince.

"I was until that!" I complained.

Sam chuckled, "If you say so."

Then he hugged me.

I stood there, limp in his arms, shocked as I could ever be and also trying to control the blush that threatened to flush across my face. He had never hugged me like this before and while he might have been covered in blood and dirt, his underlying scent met my nostrils with a pleasant odor. I relaxed, closed my eyes, and breathed him in before returning the hug.

"I forgive you," he said.

I pulled him closer and nearly let out a happy giggle.

"So, friends again?" I asked.

"Totally."

Yeah, totally friends and I was perfectly okay with that.

* * *

"Why don't you just leave all of that stuff in the car?" Dean asked as we opened the door to our hotel room.

I rolled my eyes and shouldered my bag that held all of my old elven hunter equipment. The knives, swords, guns and bows and arrows were made to fit in any compact space so that we had better chances of keeping our weapons hidden. It was a new thing after the turn of the century; after most of the royal family was massacred. I frowned at that. Some things never leave you, no matter how hard you try to forget.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," Sam explained while heaving along his own back of weaponry, "I've said this countless times before, Dean."

I was about to make some sort of quip when I saw a figure standing near the window of our hotel room.

I wasn't known for pulling punches where intruders were concerned. Fire spilled from my finger tips just as Dean yelled "hey!" and Sam turned on the lights. I snuffed out my fire just in time and gaped.

"Holy mother of the Son! John Winchester I almost burned your bloody head off your bloody neck!" I yelled.

Oh yes, the man we'd been looking for, the man Sam and Dean had been desperate to find, stood in our hotel room. John Winchester, the most famous hunter among the supernatural community. Hell, even elves admitted that he was good and he was. I shook my head and placed both hands on my hips.

Dean grinned, "Watch it Dad, she'd about to lecture you."

John just smiled at me and crossed his arms, "Hey Davis, long time no see."

"Huh, yeah, and you almost cut your little visit short," I grumbled.

The three of them laughed, though I wasn't entirely sure what they were laughing at. Dean strode into the room and met John halfway into a hug. My mood evaporated and the corners of my lips turned up into a small smile.

John and Dean backed away from each other. Beside me, Sam shifted and I reached over to lightly brush his hand. He responded by grabbing it for a second before letting mine go. I wasn't sure if John Winchester saw that or not, but I know from the look Dean had on his face that he did.

"Hi Sam," greeted Winchester the elder.

Sam swallowed and I finally looked up at him. He looked scared, but was trying really hard not to show it.

"Hey dad," he replied and dropped the bag of weapons on the floor.

They didn't go in for a hug and, discreetly, Dean and I glance at each other. He looked just as exasperated as I felt.

"It was a trap, but we thought it was for us, not for you. I'm sorry," Dean said.

"My fault, actually," I interjected, "I convinced them to walk into it."

John chuckled, "Let me guess, the worst thing to put in a trap is you, right?"

I grinned, "Well, what can I say? I've got tricks up my sleeve."

"Don't worry about it you two, I figured it was. I knew Davis was with you, so I wasn't too worried," he said.

Dean snorted, but Sam looked slightly annoyed. I reached out and placed a warning hand on his arm. He didn't need to get into it with his dad right now. It could wait.

"Were you there?" Dean asked.

John nodded, "I made it in time to see the blond take a swan dive. I take it she's the bad guy?"

"Yep! Controlled some daevas that Bri apparently can see," Dean explained.

"That's my boys."

"If you weren't surprised," I began, "then I take it that this yellow-eyed demon who remains unnamed, has tried to trap you before?"

John nodded, "Unfortunately."

"Let us help," Sam implored.

John shook his head, "No, you and Dean need to stay with Davis and leave the demon to me. Trust me on this, I'm close to killing the thing."

"We'll keep our heads down then," I promised for the both of them.

Sam glared, "Bri -,"

I met his glare with mine, "Sam, if you're father's gotten this far on his own, it's best to just let him finish it alone. We'll only get in the way."

"Sam," John interjected before Sam could form a reply, "It'll be okay, I promise."

The look on Sam's face told me that it wasn't, but he knew enough to understand that his father had left no more room for argument. In any case we were all tired and not exactly up for one at that moment.

"Now, listen Sammy, when we were together last time, we had one hell of a fight. It's good to see you," John said.

And with that, Sam smiled, "You too."

They embraced and Dean and I smiled to each other. That was a good sign. At least, it was until I saw a daeva appear out of nowhere and make a beeline for John and Sam. Dean seemed to see the look on my face because we both leaped at the same time and pulled Sam and John to the ground. Two more daevas came in from behind and attacked before I could do anything. One large clawed hand slashed down my back and I opened my mouth in a silent scream.

I staggered to my feet and hit out at one of the daevas. My skin made contact with its barely-there nose and knocked it away. I looked and saw that one was about to plunge its claws into Sam's stomach.

I didn't think I simply allowed my instincts to take over. The result was a stream of orange-yellow fire erupting from my hand and splash onto the decaying mass that was the shadow demon. It reeled away from Sam and I grabbed his arm and pulled him beside me. I ran forward and kicked out at the one who had its claws digging into the shoulder of John before whirling around and setting the one hovering over Dean on fire. Both men scrambled behind Sam and I.

"Close your eyes and don't open them no matter what you hear!" I commanded.

I didn't wait to make sure they had, I swiped the symbol that kept my elven features hidden and spread out my hands. There was this thing about elemental magic. It had a higher level called "lightcraft" and I had access to all five elements. But, with that being said, fire-light-craft was probably the most desirable one needed at that moment and the one I was most proficient at.

For a moment, fire danced on the tips of my fingers. Then it turned silver-white and expanded, multiplied, and emitted a bright, blinding, glow. It burst forth and flooded the room.

Again, it wouldn't kill the daeva, but I had no doubt that it would repel the stupid things and give us just enough time to escape.

When the light died down, the daevas were gone and I felt slightly dizzy. It had been years since I used lightcraft and I forgot how much it taxed me mentally.

The wound in my back could have also been a factor, but at that time I was too mentally drained to care.

Sam's large hands clamped down on my shoulders to steady me before I did something embarrassing like fall.

"Bri, put your disguise back on! We've gotta get out of here!" Dean said.

I nodded and reached for my back pocket where my sharpie remarkably still was. I was certain that it would have fallen out by now. My vision blurred, but I managed the rune and watched as my glowing skin dimmed to an obviously human peach.

"Come on, let's go," John said and headed out the door.

Dean followed, but Sam slung one of my arms over his shoulders and one of his around my waist. He guided me out of the room.

I didn't hear anything else that happened. Sam simply led me to the Impala and helped me into the back. He got in after a small bit and sat on the car floor beside me with hydrogen peroxide, water, a rag, and some bandages while Dean started the car.

"Bri, you okay?" Sam asked.

I smiled, "Out of practice. What I did was… not easy. Takes years to learn."

He laughed, "Well, you've been slacking off for five years."

"Cheeky bastard," I said and then winced as he dabbed my back with peroxide, "your dad?"

"Gone."

"I'm sorry," I said.

Sam smiled, but it looked strained, "Not your fault. Just sleep."

And I did while Sam finished cleaning my wound so my body could heal itself. I didn't know what exactly went on before we parted ways with John Winchester, but I had a feeling that it hadn't been pretty. I resolved to ask Dean when I got the chance.

_Well, Like it? Hate it? DESPISE IT? Review and tell me what you think!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Supernatural Visions**

**Chapter 3**

**Shadow Moon**

**Author's Note: **_Hilariously enough the consequential turn-out of this chapter was completely different from what I'd originally intended for it. _

_Another thing: this chapter was going to be long. Like, seriously, I mean loooong. The end of this one was pretty much going to be the middle of the original and, having gone through one story I'm now editing that once had chapters bordering 20,000 words or more (yes you read that right) I decided not to do that to myself or you guys. It gets really hard to follow your own story when the chapters get that long as I've discovered._

* * *

The last few weeks post Chicago was interesting; especially where Sam was concerned.

There was something to be said about the man's ability to attract women no matter what species they were. His latest show of romantic magnetism involved the startlingly beautiful Sarah Blake. I, personally, thought she was awesome and the two of us got on like two pees in a proverbial pod. And she was good for Sam, in both Dean and I's opinion; especially after seven months of mourning Jessica. While we weren't, well I wasn't at least, trying to shove him back into the dating world it was good for him to at least be reminded that vengeance wasn't the only thing worth living for.

In the end, Sam admitted that we were right, but hadn't solidified anything with the amazing Sarah. It was a missed chance in my book, a wasted opportunity. Did I mention that she was the coolest, sanest, person I'd ever met and was perfect for the man?

Dean and I were definitely not inclined to let him forget it.

"So, Sammy, called her in the last hour?" Dean asked.

Sam rolled his eyes while locking his phone and slipping it back into his pocket. I leaned forward between the gap which separated the front seats and glanced at Sam with a knowing expression on my face.

"Have you, Sam?" I asked with a smile.

"No, I haven't. We're not dating, or calling, or even in any sort of contact," Sam replied and Dean and I exchanged identical grins at how his voice practically rang with irritation.

I pouted and sat back against the backseat, shaking my head.

"Pity, she was awesome," I said.

Dean nodded and I could tell by the lift of his cheeks that he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"You know, princess has a point, there. She was pretty impressive," he said.

I pouted at the nickname but didn't bother to correct him. There really wasn't any point. It'd just encourage him.

Sam shook his head, "We're friends, if that, nothing more. Promise."

"Dude, if you liked her you can tell us. Bri and I ain't gonna judge," Dean prodded.

I leaned forward again and gently nudged Sam's arm. He fixed his green eyes on me with a confused shimmer in his irises. I looked away and smiled.

"Yeah, I mean, I've met a lot of guys I liked over the years. Nice blokes, too, and I liked a few of them," I said wistfully.

Moonlit walks, candlelit dinners, and handsome men in tuxedos always caught my interest. Unfortunately I had to kill about half of them. Dean seemed to catch wind of this and burst into laughter.

"Bri, your idea of a date is a bit different than ours," he said.

I snorted, "Oh, you mean those little candlelight dinners at the nice restaurants Sam took her to? Yeah, we have a very different definition."

"Actually, I don't normally take girlfriends to restaurants that nice for a first date," Sam said.

I thought about this for a moment. Most of the "dates" I ever went on involved me needing to swindle information out of someone, so my experience with casual dating, or serious relationships, was small. Actual serious relationships never factored into the equation. There were too many things to do.

"Well, in this case, Dean is… accurate to say that I don't have a lot of experience with dating," I admitted.

Dean snorted and asked, "So, how was your first time?"

My eyebrows drew together and I pondered that question seriously. I knew the phrase involved first time having sex and loss of virginity, but that was about it. Elves did go over sex as a usual course of education. My people weren't ashamed of it, weren't afraid of it, and even acknowledged that it existed. We just… didn't… participate in pre-marital sex… well, not often. It was both a cultural thing and a biological thing for us. Some did, most didn't. It wasn't a big deal either way for the elves, but I'd come to realize in the days I'd spent living as a human that mankind looked at being a virgin past a certain age was seen as funny for most people (aka many of the officers I'd worked with in the past).

The point is that I knew what Dean meant, but was feeling particularly vindictive at that moment so I answered in the only way I possibly could.

I decided to screw with him.

"Like… first date?" I asked.

Dean slammed on the breaks and pulled to the side of the road to turn around and gape at me.

Sam burst into howling peals of laughter. He'd already known that I was innocent, mostly innocent, but I wasn't inclined to let Dean know.

"Don't tell me you're a virgin?" he asked in a sort of horrified trance.

I was attempting to not mimic Sam and give into my need to laugh at him. I wasn't completely innocent. I'd done research, especially after becoming a more active member of the precinct. It helped to know what the boys were talking about. Made it easier for me to torture – I mean tease – them in return. It really was amazing how much one could learn from an anatomy textbook.

"Okay, I won't," I replied in what Sam had dubbed as my cute-voice.

The fact that he had a category for my vocal sounds just screamed OCD. It almost made me want to study him.

And that sounded a lot more perverted than I had meant it too.

"Son of a bitch," Dean said.

Sam leaned against the window practically in tears because he was laughing so hard.

I cocked my head to the side to add effect.

"What?"

He buried his face into his hands and muttered, "I should have known when you didn't get the rubber joke."

I hadn't gotten the rubber joke when I'd first heard it and Sam had been kind enough to explain it to me… in private and out of earshot from Dean. That had been awkward when I finally understood what he was trying to inadvertently tell me.

I jutted out my bottom lip for a dramatic pout, "You know I still don't quite get it, Dean. Think you can explain it to me? Does it have something to do with a 'first time'?"

Sam, by now, had both hands covering his face as he leaned his whole body forward towards the front of the car. Dean just gaped at me for a second in what I could easily assume was horror before he turned around to face the wheel. I think I scarred him for life, to be honest; his was the face of a man staring into his worst nightmare.

"Virgin, a virgin in my car. Riding in the back seat where… no… just keep driving. Get to Charleston. Check into hotel, then just go out to the local bar, drink some bears and get laid. Good plan. Good plan," he muttered to himself.

I bit my bottom lip in an attempt to not burst out laughing. I think I really did scar him for the rest of his life. Not that I blamed him; the very idea of him having to explain to a one hundred and ten year old virgin what a "first time" was probably hadn't been something he'd ever thought he'd do. The mere idea probably fried his brain.

I laid down on the back seat and heard Dean utter a sort of whimper causing Sam to snort, and closed my eyes feeling very satisfied with myself. I had affectively teased and tortured both Winchesters for the day.

Life was good.

* * *

We checked into a Best Western later that night. Charleston, South Carolina had more tourism that time of year than we anticipated and because of that we could only get one room. This was the first time the three of us slept in one room, so we walked into our temporary abode with a mutual feeling of awkwardness between us. Thankfully there were two queen-sized beds, so there wouldn't be a fight on who got to sleep on the ground. Despite this the awkward factor was still there.

The three of us silently agreed to ignore the lack of privacy and set about making space for ourselves. Sam and Dean took the bed next to the window while I tossed my suitcase on the one next to the door. I wasn't in much of a talking mood, needing the time to spread out and relax, so I pulled one of the huge tomes on magic out of my bag and turned to one of the chapters on advanced elemental practice. Soon I became so engrossed in what I was reading that I didn't notice when Dean left to go find a bar or when Sam entered the bathroom to take a long shower.

I finished the chapter before I noticed people were missing and, even then, I didn't give it much thought. With the review of elemental magic theory still running through my head I turned over onto my back and held out my hands. To accomplish this bit of magic I needed to keep my eyes open. I had to force myself to see, force myself to control, and allowed my emotions to channel through to my advantage and not my downfall.

The element I started with was water.

Water had a calming effect on me that no other element had. Fire, the element I had the most affinity with, fed off of my base emotions and personality. It was instinctual for me to use and always the first one that reacted to any sort of dangerous situation. There were times when I never had to think in order to summon it. Fire was a part of me and I relished in the fact. Water, while also an element I could use, went against my personality. It took a while for me to learn to control it, but once I had managed to draw connections of the element to my personality (took a while) I had finally gotten a hang of it.

Using water and fire, in tandem, turned into a sort of meditative practice for me. I didn't clear my mind, I didn't reach out to some weird void to find my inner self, I simply concentrated on what I wanted the water to form into and took it from there. It twisted and turned, froze and unfroze, and contorted into different positions with each wave of my hand. The more I became used to the feel of calm, thoughtfulness, and tranquility the less I had to move my arms to control the element. After fifteen minutes the water responded with just a twitch of my index finger.

I had just flicked the formless mass into marble-sized droplets when I noticed Sam leaning against the bathroom door, arms crossed, and a concentrated look on his face. My concentration wavered for a moment and the water droplets flickered for just a moment. But, to my immense relief, they stayed in place. I sighed and flicked out all of my fingers. The water shimmered and vanished back into separate molecules.

"Can wizards do that?" Sam asked.

I shrugged, "Depends on how diluted their elven blood is. The further away they are from their elven ancestry the more their magic tends to morph into what is considered controlled magic."

He tilted his head towards his shoulder that faced the hotel room mirror. I smiled slightly and moved my right finger in a clockwise circle while moving the left one counterclockwise. The water swirled in a dual pattern around itself. It shimmered in the sunlight that streamed through the partially open window curtain. Thankfully we were on the second floor and the front door opened into a hallway, so there wasn't much chance of anyone seeing me practice.

"What's the difference?" he finally asked after a few moments of consideration.

"Wizard magic is with the element they have an affinity towards as their base, but influences certain abilities that are uniquely their own. Pure elven magic is elemental. Some elves can use more than one element and even fewer can use all five," I said.

"Like you?" he asked.

I nodded, "Like me. My field instructor at OLIMPUS, actually, was an earth base but the power she was distinctly known for was her ability to control metal at a molecular level. She learned how to fight by manipulating the metallic molecules into different shapes and sizes. She can make a sword with her mind and use it to fight with. I tried mimicking what she does, but the most I'm able to do is make a dilapidated sword."

He snorted and moved to sit on my bed next to me. I remained on my back, not particularly inclined to move.

"You still think I'm a wizard, don't you?" he asked.

I nodded, "Both you and Dean have the bloodline, but I think it manifested more in you than it did him."

I noticed the look on his face at that revelation and I wondered if he was finally going to ask the question I'd expected for weeks. He didn't disappoint.

"So, Dean and I have elven ancestors?" he asked.

I nodded, "I did some research on you two before we officially met."

He raised an eyebrow and I rolled my eyes. Sometimes it wasn't hard to believe that Sam and Dean were brothers.

"I was trying to figure out who you were," I said.

"Ah," he replied but the tone of his voice bordered on condescending.

I stuck my tongue out at him. He laughed.

"Real mature."

"Oh ha, ha, ha," I said and laid back down on my bed.

He stared down at me for a moment before asking, "How much do you know?"

"Quite a bit," I answered, "How much do you want to know?"

He thought for a moment, "Basic summary."

I shrugged and launched into the least complicated summary I could think of, "The Winchester line has one far, far back. Before the American Revolution your ancestor, Robert Winchester married an elf named Tirwen who had previously changed her name to Natalie Boulreguard. She was from a noble house in the elven kingdom, but her brother had turned Knight Elf and murdered most of her family. She saved herself and hid on the… er… Mayflower and acted as a nurse to the sick individuals on the boat. She healed your ancestor from blood poisoning and a romance sparked. Your mother's side, the Campbell's, was a different story. They come from a long line of hunters and your great, great grandfather Jared Campbell met and later married an elf healer named Rhianne who changed her name to Ryan Eden. The marriage is far enough back for your blood to still be diluted by your human ancestry, but I'm not really sure. When elves go off the grid and merge with human hunters we tend to lose almost all contact with them. I'm an exception because my aunt's the head of OLIMPUS."

There were other reasons why I was the exception to the rule, but I wasn't inclined to discuss them with Sam. He really didn't need to know.

"Is this all on the OLIMPUS database?" he asked.

"Yep! We have every human hunter in our database!"

"Why?"

I snorted, "Have you met yourselves? You lot cause one bundle of trouble after another. My people are left to clean up your messes. Like a blaring FBI record, for instance."

Sam laughed, "Good point."

We stayed in a comfortable silence for several minutes after that. I enjoyed our moments of silence. They were peaceful and allowed both of us to enjoy each other's presence without having to do or say anything. It wasn't like with Dean and I, we tended to banter for hours on end, sometimes arguing and sometimes not. Sam was a different case, though. No matter how awkward some subjects could get (like him explaining the infamous rubber joke to me) he looked at me the same way as he always did. I was his friend. He could ask me anything, tell me anything, get inside my head without meaning to, you name it.

"How long do you think it'll be before I stop slipping into your mind?" he asked, breaking the silence.

Did I mention that, sometimes, our thoughts were in sync with each other's? It was weird, but it happened. I theorized one day that maybe our minds just naturally connected without meaning to and we could subconsciously influence what the other was thinking. Neither of us was entirely thrilled with that idea.

"I don't know," I replied, "mind magic is more of a minor talent for me. I don't know much about it. I can enter people's minds and cause damage to extract information, but that's about it."

He smiled, "But you don't hurt me when I come in."

I was a little worried about that. Most of my memories were locked away in my mental cupboard, but that didn't mean certain suggestions and feelings weren't floating around waiting to be picked up. And surface memories were a whole other can of worms.

"I did not know I was doing that, sorry," I said sincerely.

"It's alright. I keep doing it to you, so it really doesn't bother me," he said.

Sam Winchester, I decided, was an enigma in on himself. Had I been in his position I would have been furious at the possibility of him being able to get into my head. But I found that his presence, even without the mental connection, calmed me and I was able to focus on a lot of things… like keeping both men alive.

"I'll text my professor whenever we stay somewhere for longer than five minutes. See if I can get a book on controlling a psychically inclined mind for you, yeah?" I asked.

"I think I'd like that," Sam said with a grin.

I grinned back.

* * *

Much later, but earlier than both Sam and I expected, Dean came back with a frown on his face. I could smell the putrid odor of beer on his person, but there wasn't as much of it as there usually was. And he seemed far more sober than he had intended to be. And he was back at eight.

Sam and I both knew that his initial plan had been to get drunk and laid, so if he was back in the hotel with that troubled pretty boy expression (something both Winchester boys perfected in varying degrees) then something wasn't right.

From where Sam and I laid against the headboard of my bed with his arm slung over my shoulders and my body pressed slightly against his. My old textbook I had been given; _"The Basic Universal Guide to all things Elemental and How to Apply Them" _by Untayar jen'de Bir (one of the African dialects of our race and my absolute favorite authors about elemental magic) rested open on his lap and I was pointing out various ways to discover the type of elemental base he would supposedly have. We glanced up at Dean and synchronically raised our eyebrows the moment we saw his face. Dean looked like he was about to say something when he seemed to catch himself and shoot us a narrowed look. Sam and I exchanged confused glances and then looked back at him.

"What?" Sam asked a little more defensively than I think he meant.

Dean blinked, shook his head, and sat down on his and Sam's shared bed. I closed the book after marking the page with one of the built-in bookmarks that came with the large volume. It was a new regulation passed around twenty years ago by the *High Wizard Council and was verified as a necessity by the *White Council of the Eldar.

"There've been deaths," Dean said.

It was at that point that I realized why Dean looked incredibly ill.

"Supernatural deaths?" Sam asked.

Dean nodded, "Seems to be. Uh, Bri, you might want to see this."

He held out his phone. It was a newer one with better picture capabilities and had a bit of an elven twist. It was the best I could convince my aunt to give them. I took the phone and flipped it open.

I blinked.

I blinked again for good measure.

I blinked and shook my head because I couldn't quite comprehend what I was seeing.

I blinked and then smirked while chuckling darkly.

"Typical! The shithead finally leaves enough of a lead _after_ I've left OLIMPUS," I muttered darkly.

Of course I couldn't be sure if it was him, but I figured that he was my best suspect. This was his M.O. after all. The intricate carvings on the body; the body of a teenager who looked no older than fourteen, that was all him. His signature. He always stayed young and refused to kill beyond the age of twenty-four and never odd numbers; just even ones.

"What?" Sam asked while looking over my shoulder.

I tilted the screen so he could see.

"Holly shit," he said a moment later when he saw the methodically inflicted gore glaring up at him from the phone's screen.

"We found him in the alley behind the bar, well, more like the waitress did. The bar-tender and I contacted the police and I lied and said I was a Federal agent off-duty, so I didn't have my badge on me. They didn't check, so I wheedled us onto the case. I gave _the code_ and the Lieutenant on the scene called the Captain of the Charleston County Sherriff's Office. I mentioned your name and, well, he said to expect a call from the head in an hour," Dean explained.

I wanted to snap at him for taking charge like he did without calling me about it first, but then I stopped to consider his predicament. He was, seemingly, a few feet away from where the body had been found. The crime, by all current evidence, was committed in that exact location. It was a factor that would be slightly more difficult to prove without proper forensic evidence.

Basically, I knew that Dean probably blamed himself for what happened despite it being more my fault for not looking into this earlier. I had isolated myself from OLIMPUS. In a way, this whole thing was on me.

Before I could tell him any of this, my phone rang. I sent Sam a look that ordered him to talk to his brother before answering the annoying buzzing that vibrated my purse.

"Davis," I grunted.

There was no need for formalities. I knew who the caller was.

"I leave you alone, unadulterated, and free for a month and a half and you already have one of your boys barging into an active investigation without even meaning to. Should I start calling this the Winchester Curse, or should I just file this under the folder titled, "I-Told-You-So"?"

I rolled my eyes and refrained from sticking my tongue out at the voice receiver. My aunt was going to milk this for all of its worth and elves didn't believe in being wasteful. It was apparently bad for the environment.

"Yes, yes, cut the crap and release the file information on the traitor so the Winchesters and I can deal with him," I grumbled.

"Why? It isn't like you work for me anymore. For all I know, you and the Winchester boys could be a dangerous liability and this is the first time Caelum's screwed up enough for us to capture him," she said.

I sighed.

"Aren't you busy in Russia and the Balkans at the moment?" I asked pointedly.

"Oh! Are we taking an interest now?" she asked.

I rolled my eyes, "Cut the crap Artemis and just transfer the files to us. Caelum's been my target for years now, at least give me the satisfaction of killing him?"

"Fine, I'll open the case to your personal account, but I want him out in a week or else I'm giving the case to someone else. Got it?"

"Yes," I replied grudgingly.

"Good!"

With that she ended the call. I snapped the phone shut and glanced up at Dean with a blazing grin adorning my face. It was the expression Sam had dubbed as about-to-inflict-bodily-harm number seven. He swears that it's the scariest one in my arsenal. I told him that he was way too OCD in response.

"So, how do you feel about hunting a Knight Elf named Caelum?" I chirped.

Dean blinked. Sam sighed and I heard the gentle swish of his hair as he shook his head.

"Who?" Dean asked with a completely bewildered look on his face.

Sam glanced down at me for a moment before removing the arm he had draped over my shoulders. I watched his torso disappear behind the side of the bed as he reached for his bag. My eyes focused, for a brief moment, on how his biceps bulged and stretched the grey shirt he wore.

It took me a moment to realize that I had been staring a second too long. It took me another moment to glance at Dean, who was smirking at me, to realize that the heat I felt rush to my cheeks actually showed on my face. For good measure I stuck my tongue out at him and he replied with a snort.

Sam heaved himself back onto the bed and handed me his laptop. His lips formed briefly into that infectious smile I always returned whether I wanted to or not.

I opened his laptop and waited for it to start before quickly logging myself into the OLIMPUS database. With a few more clicks and keystrokes an image popped onto the screen and both boys simply blinked at it. I glanced at the picture that came up thoughtfully and realized why they looked so startled. Caelum had been an exceptionally handsome bloke with an impeccable record as an agent against the dark forces of The Enemy. Even with their years of experience as hunters I didn't doubt that the brothers had a difficult time placing the suspect as a Knight Elf.

"His name is Caelum ven Geat. He used to be a hunter in OLIMPUS but left the organization back in the nineties. It was reported that he turned rogue but we never had enough evidence to support the claim until three years before I left OLIMPUS," I explained while glancing at them, "The evidence, actually, was found by your dad and he helped me get the closest to finding ven Geat than I had since I was given the case."

Sam, when I glanced up from the computer screen at him, looked startled. I'd met John Winchester when they lived in Alaska and, from what I could see from their faces, John hadn't told either of them anything about the case he'd picked up that accidently ran into mine.

"So, let me guess, he dropped off the grid, laid relatively low and caused the odd disturbance?" Dean asked, apparently deciding to pursue that line of questioning later.

Sam looked like he had wanted to, but didn't object so I plowed on.

"My former team and I were the only ones on lookout for him. He used to be one of the top hunters of OLIMPUS," I explained.

"Which means," Sam said, "that whatever this guy is, we can bet that he's powerful."

"Don't forget batshit crazy," Dean said.

I smiled and began going through ven Geat's file. I chewed my tongue absentmindedly while reading the missing persons report, what we first thought had happened.

"We thought he was missing at first," I explained, "There hadn't been any precipitating events that would have told us he was going dark. He just up and left, and made us think he was kidnapped during a mission. Later we received intelligence that he had been sighted and was attacking OLIMPUS hunters. After the fifth one where we ruled out known knight elves we added him to the list as per due process. I don't know what he looks like now."

"Wait, what do you mean by now? He can just change his appearance at random?" Sam asked.

I shook my head. They weren't going to like this part. I briefly considered what I knew about knight elves. Scratch that, they were going to freak.

"When you delve too deeply into sorcery it changes you. Every care that you may have once had, every value you had for life, all love and joy in its purest form is slowly, or quickly depending, washed away. That changes your appearance as well. We're not sure why, there isn't a scientific explanation and the magical one's pretty sketchy at best. We know, though, that depending on what sort of sorcery you do, your skin will either turn black, blue or white," I caught their looks and rolled my eyes and amended, "as in, the skin actually turns black like coal and white like milk. Hair turns red eyes either turn yellow or red. Most of the time it takes years for the hair to start fading red let alone the skin."

Sam and Dean did not look happy. In fact, Sam looked like he was both intrigued and disgusted while Dean simply opted for the latter. It was Dean, however, who actually said something.

"Right, so I'm guessing that, if they were just performing some sort of low level sorcery the most their skin will turn is blue?" He asked.

I nodded, "The hues tend along that line of the color spectrum."

"This applies to everyone, doesn't it? No matter what color of race you start out as?" Sam asked.

Oh they really weren't going to like this.

"Sadly, it does. Though humans mostly become demonically possessed. There are a few, though, who manage to delve so deeply into the evil arts that there isn't much of a way for them to come out of it," I explained.

"Well why doesn't that surprise me?" Dean asked sarcastically.

I rolled my eyes, "Given your line of work, it shouldn't."

* * *

We spent quality time at the police station looking over the files of the unusual murders. With each passing Cold Case folder I found myself growing ever more perturbed at the station's handling of the situation. It was a ritualistic killing. The moment they saw this, they should have called my aunt for help. The killings weren't from any known human sacrificial religions. If they knew that they didn't have anything to go on why wasn't OLIMPUS contacted?

The more I thought about the situation the more a growing hypothesis emerged in my head. Was the Chief of Police being paid off? Was he or she on Caelum's side?

I filed that thought away for later consideration and focused on the problem at hand.

What was Caelum trying to do?

He was looking for something. I caught a symbol that I knew from my limited alchemic experience and adjusted my line of thinking. He was trying to communicate with someone.

Who was it though? I stared at the symbols before shaking my head and letting out a frustrated sigh. Hypotheses and theories weren't going to get us anywhere. We needed to talk to the families.

When I voiced my conclusion to Dean and Sam, they agreed.

"What I don't get is this: why weren't the kids trying to get the hell out of there while this Caelum guy had 'em?," Dean asked during the drive to the latest victim's home.

"They might have known the guy," suggested Sam.

I nodded, but kept my mouth shut. Sometimes, it was best to let the boys talk when I had several scenarios running through my head at once.

"That's possible. We'll have to ask them."

I narrowed in on something that we'd overlooked while sifting through the ten Cold Case files, "They lived in the same neighborhood."

"So, it's possible that they knew the bastard," Dean said.

I nodded, "Yeah, but he wouldn't have looked like a Knight Elf. They can hide their appearance, like I can."

"Can they look like a normal elf?" Sam asked.

"No. We have a skin quality that's impossible for them to imitate with their rhunes. They prefer human form," I replied.

"So, we ask them to describe everyone their kids had in contact with besides each other and see who fits the bill the best," Sam said.

"And then narrow it down from there," I concluded.

Dean pulled up to the curb in front of a large, Victorian Model, house. We hashed out a plan to separate, Dean and I were going to interview four families and Sam was slated to interview the other half. Where both of them were concerned, I took the time to hash out (again) the rules for interviewing non-supernaturally related folk.

"Remember, no weird questions. Let them talk. If you find anything weird with what they say, question them. These families shouldn't have anything to hide, but if they seem to, grill them on it, but do it as gently as possible. Above all else BE SYMPATHETIC."

It was almost funny with the way they moped and brooded when I lectured them on this.

Almost.

Dean followed me up the pebbled path to the house of our latest victim. We knocked on the door and were met with a woman, around her mid-thirties, wearing black. Her brown eyes, streaked with red lines from crying, contracted into a surprised expression for a moment before her brows, which were plucked to pencil-like perfection, furrowed the dark skin of her forehead into neatly creased folds. I smiled softly at her.

"Mrs. Thomas, I'm Agent Brianna Davis with the FBI and this is my partner, Agent Sean Winchester," I could see Dean's carefully blank face from the corner of my eye and I knew, I just knew, that he hated the false name I'd given him, "We were wondering if we could ask a few questions to help the ongoing investigation of your son's murder?"

She sighed and nodded before stepping aside to let us in.

We were led into the living room and allowed to sit down on the couch while she stood awkwardly for a moment before asking, "Would you like something to drink?"

Her voice was measured, cracked, and dry. She'd been crying very recently.

"No thank you," I said before Dean could say something insensitive.

She nodded and then sat down in the chair opposite of us. I looked down at the coffee table and noticed an open binder full of photos. With another glance, I noticed that the photos depicted the victim.

"He was a good boy. Always loved his soccer and running. His birthday was last month and my husband and I bought him a goal to set in the back yard for practice. I just…" she broke off with a sob.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, ma'am," I began, "and we're doing everything in our power to find the murderer. But, in order to do that, we need your help. What was he like at home?"

She took a moment to collect herself before answering, "He was a happy kid and very creative. The things he could do with arithmetic are beyond anything I've ever seen. The school was so proud of him that he's already being recommended to the top universities. And he just loves his sports. He runs on the track and plays that soccer game. Never missed one since he discovered it. We had our little differences here and there, but… but he's – he'd – been such a good son."

Dean leaned forward, "So, no strange friends? No one who might have been a bit shady?"

She shook her head, "No, none of the sort."

I glanced at Dean just as he turned to look at me. Silently, we agreed that it was best to not ask why the kid was near a shady bar at night. Given what the mother believed about his past, I honestly doubted that she would have known and it was probably best not to inform her of it at the present.

"Could you describe, in detail, everyone your son had close contact with, even family members and friends?" Dean asked.

She sniffed, "Why?"

"Just procedure, Mrs. Thomas, we're required to cover all grounds by law," I said.

She consented.

I asked the questions while Dean wrote everything down. The kid was popular. About twenty people were considered his close friends while another six adults knew him as part of the family. There was one, Mrs. Thomas noted, a neighbor who all of the neighborhood got along with and soon became a close family friend. But, that family friend was female, so I ruled her out.

When the questions were done, we asked permission to inspect the child's room. She gave her consent.

James Andrew Thomas was his name and apparently he really liked to invent. And when I say invent I mean invent things normally seen in science fiction movies. Dean and I gaped and the walls covered in designs, diagrams, lists and equations. His desk and floor were strewn with papers, pencils, rulers, protractors, a compass, and engineer books. I looked at a few of the volumes. College level, post college level, molecular biology (probably a hobby), astrophysics; I shook my head.

"It's like walking into my ex-teammate's lab. This kid's a genius! No wonder the school was so enthusiastic about him," I remarked.

"This ex-teammate of yours, is he an elf?" Dean asked.

"Wizard, actually," I replied.

"Ah, so, um, would a wizard have a beginner's guide to elemental magic?" Dean asked.

I shrugged while sifting through a pile of papers. I made a mental note to insist that the mother contact a University to have one of the professors look at her son's work.

"If they want to discover what they can do and learn how to control it at the very least, then yes, yes they would."

"So, would it look a bit like this?" he asked.

I turned around and saw a newer version of my copy of _"The Basic Universal Guide to all things Elemental and How to Apply Them" _by Untayar jen'de Bir. I placed my hands on my hips.

"We need to talk to the other families," I said when my mind caught up with what I was seeing.

Suddenly, a few things were starting to click and I was determined to keep it from them until I figured everything out… maybe.

* * *

We spoke with the next three families, got descriptions of the people closest to the victims and acquired our victim's school schedule down to the last hour they spent on the campus. Apparently these kids were smart, creative, and eccentric in one way or another. One was a cheerleader, fourteen, tall, light, athletic, and incredibly acrobatic. Another was a boy who had a knack for growing things. The kid had one impressive greenhouse. The last one was musical. She was so good, already at her age, that she could influence the emotions of the people around her.

And all of them had _"The Basic Universal Guide to all things Elemental and How to Apply Them" _by Untayar jen'de Bir stashed away in some hidden drawer in their rooms. When asked about it, none of their parents knew about it.

"It's already suspicious," I stated.

"Why's that?" Dean asked as we walked back to the Impala.

"Because whoever is on the lookout for a witch and wizard in any neighborhood would have informed the parents and the children at the same time. They wouldn't be this secretive about this. Our *Statute of Secrecy isn't that strict," I explained.

"Maybe they thought the parents would go crazy. You've seen the amount of crosses and churches in this neighborhood, how many children would want their parents to find out that they're witches and wizards here?" Dean asked.

I snorted, "That's why we have an elf, witch or wizard, talk to everyone at the same time. Normally that family's presented with their history and a very thorough explanation as to what an elf is and the differences between magic and sorcery and how this type of magic is innate and that the family isn't completely human. There's a few bumps in the road, of course, but we always make sure to have options for the children should their parents decide we're all agents of evil and that their kid is devil incarnate."

We stopped and leaned on the hood of the car, arms crossed with frowns on our faces. Dean sighed.

"So, you think Caelum's specifically targeting witches and wizards. Why?"

"No idea," I lied.

I actually had a pretty good idea and the more the evidence for said idea piled up the more I was convinced that it was best to keep the Winchesters out of it.

I glared at the asphalt.

It didn't add up, though! Why was ven Geat sacrificing untrained witches and wizards to make a simple phone call? Normally he would have cleaned up after himself, so something was off. His MO was more subtle than this.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. A trap, maybe? But for who? For me? That was my best guess, which made it all the more imperative that I keep the boys out of this. I could take ven Geat.

Minutes passed and my ears perked at the sound of footsteps approaching us from behind. I glanced over my shoulder and smiled. It was Sam. He smiled back.

"So, guess what I found?" he asked.

""_The Basic Universal Guide to all things Elemental and How to Apply Them" _by Untayar jen'de Bir?" Dean and I replied in sync.

Sam blinked before nodding, "You too, huh?"

We nodded.

"So, witches and wizards are the targets," Sam concluded.

Dean and I nodded, but I kept my mouth firmly shut while Dean and Sam did all the talking. I was taking a few things into consideration concerning how much I actually wanted the two of them involved. After all, this wasn't a goblin, this wasn't a daeva, and this wasn't even a ghost. This was a Knight Elf and they were in a whole other league of their own.

* * *

When we got back to the hotel I placed them on research duty while I took it upon myself to check out the school. Sam was going through the lore behind the rituals (i.e. I threw my English copy of _"A Guide to the Dark Forces and How to Counteract Them"_ by Wildhelm fen Dairn at him) and Dean was set to inspect the families. I told them to call me if they found anything particularly suspicious and/or alarming. They didn't get much beyond that. As far as they knew, ven Geat was after fourteen-year-old witches and wizards. They didn't need to know that he was after me or my ex-team.

I arrived at the school via taxi. Dean allowed me to drive the Impala for the most part, but normally he was in the car with me. While he offered me the keys back at the hotel room I'd decided to call a cab.

The principal met me at the door and I flashed my FBI badge. She nodded and we shook heads.

"Agent Davis, I assume this is about the person who's murdering my students?" she asked.

I nodded, "Yes, can we speak in your office? We have something we need to discuss."

She nodded and led me into the building.

When we got to her office she closed the door and lowered the window shades. I sat down in one of the seats and she moved to sit behind her desk. For the next minute we stared silently at each other neither moving to break it. Despite how antsy her stare made me I remained composed. The way she was looking at me reminded me of Professor Laurel Moruni, one of my mentors back when I worked at OLIMPUS.

"A new teacher, Edward Brown, didn't show up for work today," she said.

I nodded and crossed my legs. She must have known why I was there.

"Did he give a reason?" I asked.

"No, he didn't even call. I reviewed the students he had contact with and still has contact with and I've found that all of the victims had him in common," she said.

I reigned in an exasperated sigh that threatened to escape my lungs. The lady might have reminded me of Professor Moruni, but there were some definitive differences. For one, the good professor was better at being infuriatingly evasive when she wanted to be. This woman, while making a good effort, barely held a candle to her.

In any case, I was, for all intents and purposes, a federal agent. I didn't have to put up with the BS.

"I know that you know about the actual reason why Edward Brown was stationed here. Only he wasn't supposed to be Edward Brown," I said.

She stared at me, lips pursed, clearly unhappy with my abruptness. I hadn't particularly wanted to be short with her, but time was of the essence. The more time wasted meant the further Caelum could slip from my grasp. I didn't want to lose him again, not this time. The bastard was going down and this woman was going to help me catch him!

"Several students had been exhibiting strange behaviors. Things happened around them that I couldn't explain to the parents. I applied for a councilor and Mr. Brown was who I received," she said.

"I would like to see a picture of Mr. Brown if you would be so kind," it wasn't a question.

She blinked at me. Then, finally, after sending her a smile, she pulled open an unseen drawer and rummaged around in it for a moment. A vanilla folder was the result of her search and she handed it to me. I took it silently and opened it.

I nearly dropped it a moment later. Caelum had apparently been vain enough about his previous elven appearance to want to keep it. He looked like the human version of his former self!

I closed the offending envelope after sifting through the contents (most of which were pretty mundane) and then handed it back to the teacher. I rose.

"Thank you for your time. I will be in contact with my superiors to select a new councilor for your school. Have a nice day," and I walked out of the room.

Once out in the clear afternoon air I allowed a shudder to rack my body. Mentally I placed the principal on my "to watch" list for future reference. Something about her seemed off and I didn't know if it was, possibly, because she was Caelum, because she was working for him, or if it was just that she was a really unpleasant person. When I got my bearings I took out my phone and dialed the cab.

It was ringing when someone tried to hit me from behind. I had felt the movement of the air behind me and ducked out of the way just in time to avoid what would have been a blow to the back of the head. Yellow eyes glared down at me. I glared back.

"You do realize that I'm just as dangerous alone as I am with team eighty-nine, right?" I said.

He smirked and pointed a black-tipped sword at my neck. I was far enough away from him to be able to avoid the thrust but… My eyes narrowed.

"Bold move traitor," I bit out.

"From your point of view," he replied and lunged.

I ducked again and kicked down to his knee supporting his weight. My attack sent him off balance enough that I was able to follow through with a well aimed punch to his diaphragm.

At least, that had been the original plan, I hadn't expected him to grab my arm and pull me towards him. In hindsight I figured that I probably should have, but I wasn't thinking at that point. Ambushes and I didn't do too well, which was funny given the current line of work I was in. The difference between hunting with the Winchester brothers and dealing with a Knight Elf was that I had expected the previous traps. This one had, actually, caught me by surprise and where I was normally several steps ahead of my opponent I found that I was sorely behind.

I did head-butt him the moment I had the chance, though, I don't recommend doing that. In fact, I recommend against head-butting one's opponent unless they really have to. This was one of those "really have to" cases that I couldn't avoid.

I dropped to the ground the moment he let me go and rolled away from him. Even five feet wasn't enough. He was on me again, the flat of his blade aiming for my head.

Horror struck me, gut-wrenching, cold, horror. Was he trying to kidnap me?

I didn't think about the ramifications of using it in public, I just reacted by instinct. Fire laced from my fingertips and surged for the Knight Elf's face. He had to throw himself out of the way to avoid getting hit.

Point for me!

Like lightening I was on him in a second. There were a few times when I actually attacked ferociously (like actually, actually). This was what constituted as one of those rare moments in life where I was working on auto-pilot. I wanted this man gone for good and I was willing to make that happen by any means necessary. Unfortunately for me, he seemed to have the same idea where capturing me was concerned.

I had to scramble off him moments later when he summoned dark magic to his hands and turned it on me. My skin felt dirty, like it had gone through a vat of vile mud filled to the brim with maggots and an assortment of other putrid things. He laughed.

Unbidden, a shudder crawled up my spine. He allowed the inky, black, aura of his borrowed power leak into the air around us. When it met my nostrils my throat seized and I couldn't breathe. I tried to will the atmosphere around me to work in my favor, but everything seemed to be getting slower. I couldn't concentrate long enough to do anything.

Caelum was going to win.

At least, he was until Sam shot at him.

The spell cleared instantly and I sagged against the pavement coughing and sputtering and trying fervently not to barf. The spell Geat used on me had left a nasty taste in my mouth. Vaguely, I saw Dean go at him with a knife, get thrown around and then throw a grenade in his face. It burst and slathered Caelum with acid.

The Knight Elf squawked and pulled away from both brothers. He stared us.

"I will be back, make no mistake of it!" he swore with a vengeful hiss and left before any of us could say anything.

Before I could blink Sam was at my side helping up.

"Brianna, you okay?" he asked.

I nodded, still breathing shallow. My throat still hurt and I figured that talking was the worst thing for it at that moment.

Dean turned and fixed me with a pointed stare. I didn't have to read his mind to know what he was about to say. They wouldn't have been here if they hadn't figured it out.

"So, when were you going to tell us that Geat was after you?" he asked.

This was going to be a very long conversation.

* * *

**Important Author's Notes About Certain References:**

_***There are levels of hierarchy among the elven race. It was constructed around 200 b. c. by the Queen Athena ven Turthin. The levels start with a current royal ruler (the king and/or queen sometimes the regents in the event that the heir isn't ready to assume the throne). Under the ruler follows thusly: The While Council of the Eldar (made up of the seven eldest among the elven race whose ages range as far back as 55,000 years); The Council of the Just Five (contains the five heads of the most notable families in the noble lines of the elves); The High Wizard Council (made up of the three most powerful wizards on earth); and the Wizard Council (made up of the Specialists in wizard and elven magic; may include wizards and elves).**_

_**I will also mention several different books and their authors in my Supernatural-verse. All book content will be expanded upon in later chapters/stories. **_

_**Another thing: all elves have a middle word between their name with the connotation of "from the", "begotten by", "of the blessed", and so on. The suffix of "ven" and "fen" are both ancient elvish handed down by old elven families. In Biblical sense (which is the technical timeline I follow in referencing to anything in the past 10,000 years including the great world-wide flood that destroyed everything) the suffix between names is a post-flood add on that not all elves use. The older the elf the less likely they use that suffix. Caelum ven Geat comes from a family of minor nobles that descended from the second son of the elven king who survived the flood on the ark (yes I'm embellishing Noah's ark! Everyone's doing it!) with the White Council of that time. **_

_***Statute of Secrecy: I really don't have a better name for it at the moment, so we'll go with that until I can think of a name that doesn't rip off Harry Potter. So, until then, enjoy the reference! ^-^**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Supernatural Visions**

**Chapter 4**

**Enmity**

**Author's Note: I'm never, never, ever going to make promises I can't keep every again. I am sooooo sorry to everyone who expected this to be updated last year. I expected it to be updated last year! I'm glad I had some time to think on a few plot points (yay), but this wait was waaaay too long. I won't promise that it won't happen again, because it probably will. I'll try to be a little consistent, though.  
**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy the fourth chapter of Visions. I'm changing the title of the story to "Enter Sandman", so those of you who were used to seeing visions and see "Enter Sandman" as a title in the near future will know. I thought that title and the accompanying Metallica song worked better for the theme of this part of the story anyway. Enjoy!**

* * *

I wasn't the most forthright person in the world. For a good fifty years of my life, from when I was very young, I'd fought on my own. I'd learned that it was better to not rely on anyone but myself to get the job done. This mindset didn't stem from me believing that the people I worked with weren't capable. The danger that I was in was consistently ingrained in my skull and I knew that, with so many people after me, the friends I made would be thrust into danger.

This was before I'd been forced to become a part of a team. In those years, my walls slowly eroded to the point where I began trusting that they wouldn't get hurt; that maybe they could face anything and everything thrown at them. When that worldview was shattered I left that entire life behind and worked as hard as I could to be normal.

Dealing with human problems had been liberating. I was content to continue that life before Sam and Dean came into the picture and shattered the living daydream with a ten pound hammer. Along with my reluctance in joining them on their quest to find their father and stop this elusive yellow-eyed demon from running amuck I'd silently vowed to protect them from anything bigger. I would help them deal with the minor league, but their exposure to the professional league of evil maniacs would be minimal.

Naturally keeping them out of it didn't work. At all.

This would not have been the first time I'd been in hot water with people I worked with. When I worked as a Night Hunter I was frequently in trouble with my aunt, the head huntress, for taking unnecessary risks. When I joined my former team they were frequently mad at me for, again, taking unnecessary risks and keeping them in the dark.

Sam and Dean weren't just fellow hunters. They were my friends and I liked to think that we grew very close in the few weeks we'd known each other. Sam, especially, since he and I seemed to be psychically tuned to each other.

Because they were worth more to me than just coworkers I tried to work harder on reasoning out my abysmal trust issues.

It wasn't even like I hadn't taken their feelings into consideration! I actually did and had thought on it for several hours. The end result with that train of thought was me deciding that not risking having to bury my team members was worth the risk of them getting pissy.

And I told them both this back at the hotel room after telling them what I'd found out on my own.

Come to find out that they had already guessed Caelum ven Geat was baiting me. They also guessed that I was only a small part of the plan, though none of us had guessed precisely why Geat was targeting untrained witches and wizards other than for the purpose of speaking with someone in hell. All we knew was that I was a highly probable component in his plans.

"You two can appreciate why I wanted to keep you guys out of this in the first place, right?" I asked dully from where I sat on my bed.

Sam, I noted, hadn't spoken one word. Dean was the one asking the questions, telling me that I was an idiot, confirming my findings with theirs, making sure that I knew how much of a moron I'd been, and pretty much anything related to the latter. Sam, however, stood by the window that overlooked the parking lot. We were three stories up, so I imagined that he had a pretty good view. Too bad he wasn't paying much attention to it. The tick of his jaw and the rigid way he stood unmoving told me that he was very angry.

"You know," Dean said in reply to my question, "I'd really like to say that we do, but we don't. We went in and fended off daevas, saved you from a Goblin, banished ghosts and wrestled with poltergeists for the past month and a half. We've all been slashed, stabbed, poked, prodded, thrown, burned, and pretty much anything else you can think of! I think you should have established by now that Sam and I can take a heavy beating, so what's the deal?"

Dean seemed more exasperated than afraid and I wanted to keep him that way. We had similar personalities and, well, having been royally pissed off myself before, I preferred not being at the receiving end of anything Dean could come up with. I'd imagine it'd be pretty brutal.

"I think we've specified, by now, that Caelum's on a whole other level," I replied dryly, "You and Sam had the element of surprise on your side. He'll expect you guys to want to launch a counterattack. It's how you work."

"Look, Brianna, I know we're not elves or wizards. Trained wizards at least, but we're not that bad when it comes down to the hunting part of our job. We can help you take him out; you just have to give us something to work with. I think you've proven that you can't take him on your own, so let us help," it wasn't as much of a request as it was an order.

I sighed, "Dean, I really appreciate what you're trying to tell me, but I meant what I said. Caelum is going to take magic to kill. He was an elven hunter. The best of your fighting abilities don't even hold a candle to him. He was OLIMPUS' best hunter and he went rogue. It makes him more powerful and more dangerous. Let me handle him."

"Oh, yeah, because you did so well," Sam finally spoke up.

I bit my tongue to keep myself from snapping at him.

"I was trying to get away without being too conspicuous," I replied primly.

I didn't want to admit that Caelum was, quite possibly, more than I could handle. He couldn't be. I wasn't going to let it happen. I was going to take him out.

"Yeah and that still didn't work. Face it Bri, you need us," Dean said.

"No I don't."

"Why?"

"Because Caelum is too dangerous!" I snapped.

Sam snorted, "How old do you think we are? Five?"

"Come on, Bri, what's the deal? We dealt with daevas, ghosts, and a soul sucking witch. Caelum uses curses. I'll give it to you that he casts them differently than witches and warlocks do, but the principle is the same. Give us the rune book, give us a marker or stylus, and let us help," Dean said.

I stared at him. Did he honestly think that runes were that easy to use?

_But they are, _reminded a traitorous part of my brain, _for them runes would be easier to use because they are descendents of elves. They weren't as human as they first thought they were. Even if magic had skipped Dean and manifested in Sam didn't mean that Dean hadn't inherited at least a few qualities that were distinctly elven. And Sam is smart enough to be able to pick up on the basics of the runic language._

I wanted to curse that small reminder. I hated that part of me disagreed, that part of me actually wanted to put two untrained mortals in harm's way.

But, maybe that disgusting part of me that actually wanted them to come along was right. Maybe I should include them.

Before I could really say anything to that effect Sam decided to open his mouth.

"You know, Dean, I don't think she trusts us," he said coolly.

Dean and I both gaped at him. Sam shrugged.

"Well, why else would she keep things from us? She doesn't trust us to have her back in there. In fact, I don't think she trusts us at all," he said.

That wasn't true. I did trust them. In fact I trusted them more than I trusted anyone else I worked with, but I also knew that they weren't equipped to handle Geat. This wasn't a trust issue, this was a tactical issue. The same small voice in the back of my mind reminded me that the brothers hadn't been trained to think tactically even with Sam's college education at Stanford.

I crossed my arms and fixed him with the most challenging look I could muster. I was daring him to continue digging his own grave.

From the corner of my eye I saw Dean glancing between the two of us. He didn't bother to even try to reply to what Sam said and Sam continued to talk as if he didn't realize just how angry he was making me with every word he said.

"I really don't understand why, we've saved her ass several times by now. She lies to us, makes sure we're out of the way, and then does stuff on her own. Honestly, she's so much like dad that it sickens me!"

And then, with his bitch-face in full throttle, he stormed out of the hotel room.

I tilted my head back and stared up at the ceiling. I counted to ten and then hurried after Sam with Dean calling after me. By then Sam was already halfway down the hallway and a few feet away from the elevators.

* * *

There were very few times when I actually employed the use of my inhuman attributes. A part of me always cleaved to a more human-like lifestyle where I pretended that my immortal body didn't exist and that I was born with pointed ears that could hear sounds coming from three miles away, eyes that could see a person running in a neighborhood leagues away and still get a good look at them, strength that rivaled the weakest international weight-lifter, and a body that, while not considered "sexy" by any means, was undeniable attractive. Hiding my pointed ears and unnaturally slanted eyebrows had been a fraction of what I had to do. When I found out that my "beauty" could still be seen and that my basic elven biology still acted like it was born to I realized that it needed to be hidden as well. The beauty I could manage, but the sight, the hearing, and the faster-than-average movements, the natural grace, the strength, had to be carefully controlled. When I entered the human world for good (seemingly) I spent the first year practicing human movements. I watched how humans moved as much as possible whether it was me looking out my window or surfing for internet videos on my old dinosaur computer. I forced my body to forget what it was born with, or at least I thought I had.

When I broke into a run to reach Sam as fast as I possibly could, my natural speed sprung from where it lay dormant in the furthest corner of my mind and I suddenly found myself clearing the distance in one second. I caught him at the elevator and barely slipped inside before the door closed. I hadn't even broken a sweat. My muscles sang; glad to have been allowed this small chance to really work out in five years. I pushed the feelings of exhilaration and relief to the back of my mind and fixed Sam with a pointed stare.

He crossed his arms and glared.

"Really?" he asked.

I rolled my eyes, "Yeah, really, I'm not letting you run off and not give me a chance to explain myself."

He scoffed and looked away from me, scowling. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Sam," I began.

He glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. I opened my mouth, found that what I wanted to say was too difficult to word, and then shut it. How could I word this without bringing up some of the most painful experiences in my life? My team had never faced Caelum head on, but we had fought the people who worked for him. The memories only reinforced my belief that the knight elf was dangerous. I didn't have much time to mentally prepare myself for what I had to tell him. If I was honest with myself, and at that time I was, it wouldn't have surprised me if Sam completely blew me off. He was like his father in that regard.

"You don't trust us, do you?" He spat.

John Winchester, I considered, hadn't exactly given Sam a good opinion of people who kept things from their friends, relatives, and co-workers for their own good. I had to remember that for most of his life Sam had never been given a good reason to trust people who only tried to protect him. He had never been protected from anything, not in the things that mattered. His father either expected Dean to do it or made Sam learn how to protect himself. I made myself remember that tidbit because I needed that reminder.

Not having that reminder would have made me much, much angrier than Sam was at me.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"I do, actually. It's just hard to get into," I replied.

"That's bullshit and you know it!"

Impulsively I shut the elevator off. The lights dimmed and we stopped moving.

"What is it with you and thinking that you always know what's best for you? You never think for a moment that some of us, aka me, might know something you don't! Why don't you trust me? I do know, Sam! I don't know if you've realized this, but I'm almost a century older than you!" I was trying not to yell, but the undertone was there.

Sam looked like he was about to respond, but I continued talking (almost yelling) before he could really get into it.

"What do you know about me? I left OLIMPUS for a reason. People die because they're not prepared! Knight elves are powerful, worse than demons and witches! They're nothing you've ever encountered before and, yes, I do think I can take him alone. Caelum's after me anyway, so he wouldn't expect it!" I insisted.

"Maybe we are, but it's no excuse for you to go anywhere without backup. Brianna. We. Are. A. Team. We do this together or not at all," Sam said.

I shook my head and crossed my arms. If anyone who knew me was paying attention, they'd know that I was trying to distance myself from him and everything he had to say. Sam, much to my growing horror, was making sense. I hated it. I hated the idea that I could have been so incredibly wrong about everything.

My voice, soft, and held an underlining emotion that I hadn't quite meant to let escape, broke the momentary silence, "I don't want either of you to get hurt."

I almost winced at how I sounded. My tone, not just what I said, conveyed more of my feelings about the situation than I wanted to.

Then I saw the look on his face and my heart sank.

Sam knew. He stared at me and I could see comprehension slowly, but surely, dawn. It broke across his face like the first rays of sunshine and continued to rise. Then his expression took a slight turn. His eyes glazed over and it seemed like he was looking at the wall above me for a moment. It took me a moment to realize what was going on and when I did I wanted to kick myself.

He was seeing everything that was in the forefront of my mind.

My heart pounded against my chest and I wanted to bolt then and there. I didn't want him to see any of it!

'_Sam, get out of my head, please!'_ I thought desperately.

But there was no helping it. He was going to see everything I didn't want him to whether I wanted it or not. It wasn't his fault. He couldn't control it no matter how hard he'd been trying the human way. If anything it was my fault for not learning how to block him out.

That fact still didn't keep me from almost crying.

When he came back to the substantial world I saw the shock, the pity, and the horror in his eyes. I wasn't surprised. Those memories had been playing over and over in my mind for the past twenty-four hours.

I closed my eyes and took another breath in an attempt to calm my racing heart. I opened them when he started to speak.

"Bri, I…," he looked lost trying to find the words to say.

He shook his head, "No, Bri, listen, I get it. Trust me I watched my girlfriend die on my ceiling right above me! Alright? I get it! And I never got to say goodbye! At least you could!"

He grabbed my shoulders. I kept my head turned away from him no matter how much I wanted to look at him.

"Look at me, please, Bri, look at me!"

He was begging. He was scared. What exactly he was afraid of I didn't know, but I could feel his hands shaking and a semblance of the same connection we shared earlier. I looked at him.

Sam's eyes were green. They were a beautiful and wonderful green. It occurred to me just how much I didn't want the fire, the life, the steady calm portrayed in those eyes to ever fade.

My eyes stung and I blinked again.

"Bri, trust us to do the right thing. Dean was right; we can learn to fight your way as well. If I'm a wizard then I'll be a wizard and Dean will learn anything you can teach him. We need to be a team, Bri. I don't know why, but I know we do. This - you, Dean, and I together hunting monsters – this feels right even if everything else doesn't and I can't guarantee everything's going to be fine. Just… just trust us to be there to help. You have to trust us not to die," he said.

I sniffed and breathed deeply again. My vision blurred despite my best efforts. I could see Sam's features blur and swim in front of me.

Finally, I looked down at his chest so I couldn't see his eyes. The sincerity in them scared me and made me want to do the one thing I hadn't dared to do since I had left OLIMPUS: trust.

"But they always do," I whispered and then slid out of his grasp.

I hit the button and turned the elevator back on. A few seconds later, it came to a stop on the ground floor. Once the doors slid open I strode out as fast as I could without raising too much suspicion in the hotel lobby.

"Bri!" He called.

I heard the quick patter of his shoes as he came after me and I continued to walk and pretend that I didn't hear him call my name. I didn't want to hear him. He'd keep telling me everything was okay when it wasn't. That was always how it was. They'd assure me that everything was fine and then they'd leave me because one of the psychopath's after me thought they got in the way… or they'd save me from the same psychopaths and die.

No more.

I reached the front doors and shoved them open. I was halfway across the parking lot when I heard Sam a follow after me. By then I'd already broken into a jog to get away from the building. I crossed the parking lot easily and a small garden of trees, flowers and tailored bushes on the far side. It surrounded one of the nicer restaurants in the district.

That was when someone grabbed me from behind.

I struggled for a moment. Trying to escape, but this person's grip was vice-like. They whirled me around and shoved me into a bush. I met the blood red irises of my attacker and froze.

Caelum.

That was my last thought before I felt a sharp pain in my neck. My vision blurred and I vainly fought against the fatigue and weakness.

"Let her go!"

The last thing I heard was Sam's panicked voice before I blacked out.

* * *

There is no good way to describe what caused the following after I blacked out. I could only list what happened. The experience was surreal enough. Trying to make sense of it was impossible.

I was floating in a sea of black. I was aware of the sensation. There was no air, no movement, no anything, just my awareness that something was wrong.

My ears picked up a susurration of voices, but I couldn't determine who they belonged to. I tried to move but my body didn't respond. I couldn't speak and I couldn't respond. I wanted to. I wanted to call out to them, I wanted to be saved but nothing I could do helped. I was helpless.

_'Dean, I don't know where they went, Caelum disappeared after he took her!'_

Was that Sam?

_'You could use your mojo, you know, get into her head, right?'_

Dean... how was I- oh. Of course! Our mental connection or whatever it was.

The darkness faded into a scene and I started. I saw Dean staring at me with his mouth tilted into a grim frown.

_"Sam, she's gotta have a book lying around somewhere. The woman thrives off of books!"_

Sam's agitation hit me in waves. The sensation was strange, like they weren't my emotions, but I was feeling them as if they were mine.

"_Dean, I don't know where to start!"_

"_You're the one who gets inside her head!"_

"_I don't do it on purpose!"_

It felt like I was the one yelling, but it was Sam's voice coming out of my mouth. He sounded… like he was about to cry. My own emotions surged against his and I felt light… er… lighter than I did at that moment.

What was going on? I'd read a lot about the magic of the mental realm, but never anything about this. Granted I admittedly hadn't read much about mental magic. Few people could master the art the literature behind it was rather lacking.

"_Sam,"_ Dean stepped forward and put a hand on my – Sam's – shoulder, _"pull yourself together, man! We need to help her and we can't do that if you're acting like the world's ending."_

Sam seemed to have gotten himself under control, because he switched to hunter-mode after a few moments.

"_Okay, so, I don't know how to use magic, you can't use magic, but we both have elven ancestry so there's one thing we can use: runes."_

"_Okay, but that involves memorizing them,"_ Dean pointed out.

"_Not if we draw them on ourselves before we go after her. We might even be able to use them for some sort of spell work,"_ Sam said.

I rolled my eyes. Runes were an alchemist creation! They were compiled of systematic mathematical equations. The ones that only took a single mark had been constructed by years upon years of study and alchemical physics. But, I mentally amended, Sam was about to figure that out.

There would have been more, but as I focused back in on the conversation at hand everything in front of more faded away and the last thing I heard was Dean saying, "_Right, well, we've got three hours…"_

What did that mean?

I groaned as the strange vision I had from Sam's point of view faded away. My head felt numb, confused and disoriented to the world around it. Even my vision blurred. I tried to rub my eyes, but found that my hands refused to move.

A jolt of fear surged through my body and my breath caught in my throat. The moments leading up to my blacking out flooded back to me and I leaned my head sharply back. It hit a wall, a wall that felt unsteady. Saw dust covered my head and shook my head to get rid of the ridiculous air particles.

My vision cleared. I was in an old, run-down house and I wasn't alone. Adrenaline rushed through my veins. I straightened up in my chair and gaped at the blue-tinged skin, orange-red hair and blood-red eyes of Caelum ven Geat. My lips parted, but the most I could manage was a dry grunt. He looked up at me from where he was flipping through a thick, emerald green, book and smiled at me. His teeth were stark white, like pearls. Just like all elves. It was the one thing that hadn't changed.

If I hadn't been an elf, or anything else not mortal, I supposed that he could have been considered handsome. When I last saw him, he was beautiful. Now he was a shadow of his former glory, a petty imitation of the glory that was the elven race. He was decaying from the inside out. All use of magic was lost to him to be replaced by the poison that was sorcery.

The sight of him almost made me want to cry as I realized that this was someone I had known. Once, he had been great, now he was scum, evil. I hated it.

"You are awake," he said.

It was the same, rich, tenor voice. That tenor voice seemed to be more amplified to sound alluring.

It had the opposite effect on me. I wanted to kill him.

"Traitor!" I spat.

He snorted, "Of what? A failing system where the heir does everything in her power to avoid her station in life? To deny the crown? I am going to reform the system, it will be better, not worse."

I felt my heart skip a beat. What did he know about the heir? I kept my face as neutral as I possibly could while my mind raced through every fearful scenario it could think of.

"And, Bri, you are going to help me achieve this. The Great One demands that, should any of us find you, we bring you with us to him. He wants you, but we must be patient. He needs a certain powerful ally, which is where I come in," he explained.

I relaxed slightly. He didn't know anything. I was safe.

"Who is he trying to get?" I asked.

When I looked in Caelum's eyes I realized that he thought I'd go along with whatever he was planning the moment he told me. I'd get some information out of him.

"Samyaza," Caelum replied smugly.

Oh shit. If he needed to release Samyaza then that would mean he'd need…

By the Triune! He'd need the blood of an adult untrained wizard. He didn't need me for anything other than bait and only one would come for me. Sam.

But how did he know Sam was a wizard? Artemis had redacted his clearance to the OLIMPUS database, so he couldn't have found him that way. He'd left the organization before Sam was born. Even if he had looked into the family he would have known that the gift skipped Dean. He wouldn't have known Sam was even born.

It meant that the only way he would have known about Sam was if he had been following us for a while and would have listened in long enough to hear me tell Sam that I thought he was a wizard. If he was listening in on us when we first arrived, then he would have heard me explain Sam's lineage.

Coldness clenched my gut like icy fingers slowly curing around my stomach. I stared at him, well, not at him but in his direction while my mind finished processing what he'd said.

He had been following Sam and Dean.

That coldness was quickly driven away by hot, fiery, anger. The bastard had been planning this for months and I hadn't noticed! I glared daggers at Caelum. Death was too good for him. I wanted to seal him inside the seventh gate of Hell. Let him commune with the worst of the worse. Let him be tortured for years and years by Abaddon, Samyaza, and whoever else my ancestors had sealed in there.

And this whole thing was a trap for Sam.

This was the reason why I always preferred to work alone.

"You're threatening my boys," I said, "you're insane if you think I'm actually going to cooperate with you."

He smirked, "Huntress Davis, you may fight now, but you and I both know that Lord Ba'al is our true ruler. He was born for greatness and I have confidence in his ability to succeed."

What could I say to that? The man was delusional and I wondered how he his thinking had evolved to this point. After all, no elf in OLIMPUS had any sort of love for Ba'al. Most of them had seen his savagery firsthand at one point or another. If they didn't see it, they had read about it and would see it very soon. This fascination with the Raiphahim confused me and I sat there thinking about Caelum for a few moments.

How did he, an OLIMPUS hunter, ever conclude that Ba'al's way was the right way? Years of training, years of seeing what Ba'al had done to the very people who devotedly served him, years of observing the slaughter of innocent children for the sake of ritualistic power; all of it had been done away with for some strange reason I couldn't comprehend.

I did have power. In fact, the potential for the power I had inherited would make me far more powerful than Ba'al. One would think I would have felt this lust for control over the masses, the ability to conquer and rule with an iron fist because I knew that I could if I ever bothered to push my current limits to their full potential, but I didn't. I had spent the first thirty years of my life living in a forced amnesiac fog and then the next eighty years of my life I was a Huntress for OLIMPUS. I didn't know I had magic for forty years of that career and had learned to fight on my own. I'd struggled against Ba'al's minions and won more than lost. Admittedly, that was probably why Ba'al wanted me so much. Even seemingly powerless I'd managed to stop him.

It was all I'd ever done, I'd realized. I went through life, one day at a time, stopping bad guys in an attempt to make the world a safer place for all of the people in it. Even when I lived as a human that had always been my goal: the protector, the avenger, the consultant, and the hunter. Despite how I felt about the previous life I'd led, despite how much I wanted to deny it, I was good at this sort of thing. I was good at protecting people.

But this is what I didn't understand. Caelum had been good at protecting people too. He fought for the same things I did and bled for them even more, far longer than I'd been alive. Maybe that was the problem? Maybe he saw how good he was, how powerful he was, and began to ask the selfish questions of why? And he, quite possibly, hadn't liked the answer. After all, from the cold mind of the universe, from the eyes of the law, mortals were disgusting creatures filled with hatred and malice. All of the good they attempted to do in the entire world would never redeem them. They were lost specks of dust in the sands of time. This sort of thinking normally did lead to people leaving OLIMPUS, but they usually didn't turn to the Knight Elves and the Fallen for answers.

"Why?" I asked, "Why did you turn to Ba'al if you thought the system was corrupt? Why not stay and reform the system?"

Caelum looked up from whatever he was doing, I couldn't quite catch what it was, and smirked, "Because the system was ordained by the Tyrant and I will not bend to the will of the Tyrant."

Ah. That made sense. "The Tyrant" was what they normally called the Triune. Another thing I would never understand. I would rather the all powerful, all knowing, creator of the universe dictate my fate than a rebellious angel who thought he could be exactly like the person who created him. However flawed his logic was I knew why Caelum went dark. He wanted to be like a god. It was why most elves went dark.

I smirked. Really? Didn't they ever learn from history? People who attempted to fly too close to godhood tended to get burned and people like me were the people lighting them on fire.

I stopped thinking about it after that final thought entered my head and focused on escaping. The ropes binding my hands together were flammable and all I had to do was...

The world around me spun and I slumped against the wall I had been set against. When the spell ran its course, the world came back into focus and I saw, briefly, Caelum's smirking face.

"Wormwood. Just a bit of it enhanced by demon blood stunts your power," he explained.

I wanted to kill him then and there. It didn't help that Caelum had the presence of mind to actually search for and remove my weapons. I thought through the list of hidden weaponry on my person hoping to at least find one that he had left. There wasn't any.

I really wanted to kill him. Every fiber of my being called for his blood and I my muscles tensed in response to my anger. I couldn't feel the elements and the more my mind caught up with the fact the more empty I felt.

I saw red while my eyes followed his movements as he worked the empty room in front of me. Where were we? Someplace abandoned, had to be, because there was no way he'd be able to hide something like this from human police officials for as long as he did.

I glared at him. He was wise to tie me up. Elements or no, I was lethal and given the chance I would have killed him.

_Sam, _I thought fervently, _stay away! Don't come for me! Stay away!_

That became my mantra for the next hour and a half.

* * *

While I tried to get through to Sam and increasingly despaired at being able to reach him with each failed moment my secondary thought processes considered the new information at hand. Caelum wanted to raise Samyaza from his prison. He needed the blood of an untrained wizard, but that was all I knew. Apparently there were some specific components I hadn't known about, but I didn't know what they were.

I watched while Caelum worked. The largest component of raising or trapping anyone in Hell was the careful application of runes. The only difference was that sealing runes were of the ancient elven language and raising runes were of the dark magic of the Knight Elves. Each had a mathematical component as a way to distort and manipulate the world around them. The only difference was that one form of magic held an evil that sent cold flashes through my body. I hated that feeling. I hated Caelum.

"Why Samyaza?" I asked because I wanted to break the silence.

And I was bored. That didn't help either.

Caelum looked up from where he was painting the ground with a delicate brush and raised a red tinted eye brow.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I sighed, "Like, Ba'al's father is Abaddon, so why would he want Samyaza when his father would be of more help?"

He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile, but I got the impression from the tone of his reply that he had meant it to be. Maybe I was just that prejudiced against Knight Elves? Not that it was a bad thing.

"The task of raising Abaddon wasn't given to me. Samyaza is mine," he said.

It was all he was going to say on the subject. He went back to his work and I continued to watch him.

At every hour, he stopped to force more of the Wormwood down my throat. I fought him every time. It was pointless to, I knew that, but I was too stubborn. I didn't want to show him that I gave in, that I was resigned; because I was anything but.

When he was finished setting up the ritual I had just received my fourth dose of that terrible stuff. By that point I was starting to feel weak, tired, and hungry. I leaned against the wall he'd placed me against and took a deep breath. Well, I tried to. It was getting harder to breath.

"The time limit is up. By the fifth dose you will slip into a coma that only my master can relieve you of. The sixth will kill you, but I do not intend to go quite that far," Caelum said as he donned an ornate black robe.

The sleeves were long and wide. All of the edges were hemmed with what looked to me like knight elven hair of different shades of red. I shuddered and took in a longer breath.

As Caelum finished braiding the top strands of his hair and lifted his inky hood the door to the room opened and Sam walked through. He was alone.

"Sam!" I choked out and tried to move forward.

I succeeded in falling face first to the moldy carpet. Really? He had to pick the room with the moldy carpet? Wouldn't the kitchen have been preferable?

But that thought was fleeting and was replaced quickly by my fear for Sam's life.

"What did you do to her?" Sam growled.

From where I lay I could see Caelum spread his arms. The sleeves were so long that they pooled at the floor.

"I have kept the promise I made to you, young wizard. I have given her a dose of Wormwood with each hour you tarried in your little inn. The next dose would have placed her into a coma that only my master could have wakened her from," he said silkily.

If the situation had been different I would have made some snide comment about his use of Elizabethan English in modern day. As it was, the situation wasn't different and I was more worried about the fact that Sam was there and I couldn't do anything to protect him than making snide comments about a villain's choice of vernacular.

"Then let her go. You have me now, so just leave her alone and I'll do whatever you want," Sam's voice cracked.

I craned my neck to look at him; to plead with him not to do this.

"Sam, no, don't!" I slurred.

I couldn't see. I could barely move. My hands and feet were tied and I wanted Sam to run away and leave me behind.

My body trembled. I wasn't sure if it was from the drug or because I was afraid. Every dark memory I'd endured for the past century came back to me. The blood, the screams, the terror in a child's eyes as his life drained away in my arms because I was too slow, the whispered confession of a dying teammate who saved me from becoming a pawn, and then the deep bass voice of a man who muttered something I couldn't even decipher before his final breath streamed passed my shoulder. They'd all died because of me and it was going to happen again.

There was pressure on my shoulder. It was so sudden that I almost jumped and cried out, but whoever was behind me had the presence of mind of cover my mouth. This newcomer gently turned me over to face the wall.

Some things in life were strange and funny. This was one of those things.

Dean Winchester was there and between the time I was captured and now he had gained a surprising ability to walk through walls. Of course, it would have been surprising if I hadn't known that there was a rune that could make solid objects insubstantial for a time.

I raised an eyebrow and barely motioned my head over my shoulder.

Dean nodded and grabbed my shoulders. I assumed he was going to try and pull me out of the room. I gave the smallest bit of resistance to try and show that it was a bad idea. That Caelum would hear. He seemed to get the message because he moved his hands from my shoulder and reached behind his back and pulled out his gun.

He was going to shoot Caelum.

It was such a simple plan that I could barely believe they'd thought it up. Sam was the distraction. It was a good distraction because neither man was supposed to be trained in magic.

Dean aimed.

I supposed, when Caelum turned around at the most inopportune time, that the entire ruse could have been up. His eyes contracted into small pinpoints at the sight of Dean leaning over me with half of his body protruding through the wall and his gun aimed at Caelum's head. He might have been able to dodge it too if it weren't for Sam who moved at the last minute by grabbing a candlestick and shoving the fiery tip into Caelum's backside.

Caelum snarled and turned around and backhanded Sam. He flew to the other end of the room, hit the wall, and slid limply to the ground.

I tried to move then and managed to prop myself onto one shoulder. I felt my lips mouth Sam's name.

Dean fired as Caelum turned around. The bullet entered through his left eye socket and threw Caelum's body back slightly. A second bullet tore through his neck and a third entered his heart. He crumbled to the ground in a growing pool of blood.

I blinked for a few moments before the strength I managed to exert left me and I slumped back to the floor.

"Bri!" I couldn't tell if it was Dean or Sam or both who'd called my name.

My vision had blurred and I blacked out.

* * *

What seemed like minutes later I felt something cold and wet resting limply on my head. I tried to open my eyes, but they didn't seem to want to work properly. I tried to move my arms and found that they were numb and heavy. My entire body was like lead laying like a dead weight sack of wheat against a semi-comfortable mattress. I twitched my toes and felt a bit of satisfaction that I could.

After a few more minutes of gently working the nerves of my body into motion I was able to open my eyes and glance around. Most of what I could see was the ceiling.

While I was trying decide whether or not I could move my neck Dean spoke to me.

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen you sleep that heavily before. I mean, really Davis, you were snoring!"

I moved my neck in the direction of his voice and sent a glare his way, "I don't snore."

He snorted, "You do when you actually sleep."

"I sleep all the time!" my voice sounded scratchy and the sound got worse the higher the pitch was.

"You doze for eight hours and then wake up. You don't actually dream," he chided.

"I dream! How else would Sam and I share them?" I said pointedly.

Dean shrugged, "No idea! I'm not some mind mojo expert."

I groaned at his use of the phrase "mind mojo expert" and slumped back against my pillow. Why Dean didn't just label magic as magic was beyond me.

"So, Sam's getting' good ol' Chinese food," Dean said.

I smiled, "He likes Chinese."

"Yeah, especially sushi. He's really looking forward to eating a huge tray of sushi from this local sushi restaurant. It's an all you can eat buffet that you can pile a huge take-out tray full of food. Sam's getting a lot of seafood stuff just for you," he said.

I smiled, "That's nice of him."

"Yeah, it is," there was a bit of an edge of Dean's voice that almost made me cringe.

I was honestly too tired to really do much of anything. I just laid there in my hotel bed and stared up at the ceiling waiting for Dean to unleash whatever he felt he needed to say to me. I could guess most of it off the top of my head.

"I know," I finally said after fifteen minutes of silence.

"Do you? Because I don't."

I raised an eyebrow. Dean sighed and shook his head. He muttered something under his breath that I knew I should have heard, but my mind was just as exhausted as my body and didn't seem to want to process much. Low range sounds were one of them, apparently.

"Look, I get it, alright? Sam and I aren't humans, but neither were anything we've killed. I know our level is way below yours, I get that, but Bri, I don't know if you know this, but you haven't been out in the fighting field lately. This Caelum guy, he'd been killing and fighting and doing whatever the hell he was doing while you were trying to be human. I'm not saying you couldn't have handled him in an outright fight, but I think he pulled one or two things over on you that prove you got too overconfident and rusty. The fact of the matter is that you can't protect Sam and me, not from your world or the supernatural. So, maybe, you just need to trust that we can actually take care of ourselves and adapt to your fighting style enough to be your back-up; to be your partners," he paused to let everything he'd said sink in.

It did. I closed my eyes and pursed my lips feeling waves of self-loathing and shame rise inside of me. I didn't have anything to say in response, so I remained silent and gazed at the wall in front of me.

"Don't do this to us again," with that Dean left for some beer he could drink with his food.

I was alone and dreading the moment when Sam would walk through that door to tell me how he really felt.

* * *

I have proved to myself time and time again over the past century that I have the capacity to overthink things. There were several different versions of the argument I just knew Sam was going to give me flickering through my head in disjointed soundwaves. Everything I could think of, everything I knew about him told me that he was beyond pissed. I knew he had been scared and I knew that he most likely partly blamed himself for me getting captured (or I surmised he did), and thousands of ways he would phrase his fear and worry drove through my mind. I'd been in his head after Caelum kidnapped me, so I knew what he had gone through… some of it at least.

I think it's safe to say that I was terrified of Sam's displeasure (to put it lightly) for reasons that we're yet entirely clear to me.

As it was, Mr. tall dark, and brooding walked through the door the minute I woke up from my fitful nap.

It was a little unsettling how he seemed to have synced himself with my recuperation schedule. Sam, it seemed, had learned how to slip into my mind as quickly as he could the moment Caelum had kidnapped me. At least, that's what I'd figured had happened. I wasn't quite up-to-date on all of the details.

He started when he saw that I was awake. I glanced at the pack slung over shoulders and the huge bag in his hands and realized that he had been taking care of the crime scene. Sam must have felt where my thoughts were going, because he smiled and heaved the huge bar cloth bag onto his and Dean's bed.

"Artemis wanted the evidence gathered. She's sending a hunter our way to pick up the evidence. Dean's talking with the coroner and the chief of police. They're coming up with a convincing story to tell the public. The families'll be informed about what really happened by an elven social agent. I left the food in the car," he explained.

I smiled, "So, I guess I haven't missed much, then?"

He shook his head and smiled, "Not really. Just the healer who came to give you the antidote to that… poison Caelum fed you."

"Oh," I said in a small voice.

Sam cocked his head to one side, "What's wrong?"

I gave him a look and the smile left his face. He glanced at the ground.

"Right, well, from what Dean's told me I think he's already given you an earful. In any case, I've already said what I needed to earlier," he said.

The reference to our earlier argument brought it back to me. I closed my eyes, horrified. What I'd said still haunted me, not because I thought that it wasn't true, but because of how personal it became for me. Sam knew now what had happened in my past and I didn't know how to reconcile that.

"I haven't told Dean, if that's what you're wondering. I figured you should tell him when you're ready," Sam said.

I started from my despair and stared at him dumbly. He shuffled and smiled uneasily.

"I… I'm just glad you're alive. We… we were worried there for a moment," he explained with a laugh.

He looked really uneasy, worried even, like he didn't quite know what to say after all of this. I sighed and held a hand out for him to take. Sam stared at it for a moment, like he wasn't sure what to make of it, before grinning nervously again and accepting the offered hand.

"Sam," I began and waited until his eyes met mine, "you're both right and I'm sorry. I don't trust you. I don't trust you to stay alive. I've lost friends twice before now and I don't want to go through that again."

He sat beside me and held my hand with both of his. He squeezed.

"Bri, Dean and I can't make any promises, you know that right?" he asked.

I nodded albeit reluctantly, "I know, but I can't make any promises either, Sam. If I can protect you two then I will. There's no getting around that."

"I - we feel the same way," he said gently.

There should be a limit to how many times a person can sigh through a conversation. I seemed to have been doing that every since I first woke - sighing and sighing because none of us could quite move on our points of views.

"Let's agree, for now, to protect each other and tell each other vital parts of any mission we decide to take. Personal stuff will take time," I compromised.

This time his smile was more gentle than nervous, "Alright, I can handle that for the time being."

He leaned over and kissed my forehead. I was too startled by that show of affection to really do or say anything in response. When he pulled back he stood from the bed and shifted towards the door.

"Chinese awaits!" he said cheerfully.  
I smiled and waved him away, "Go get it, then! I'm hungry!"


End file.
